Rough Country's 3-Inch Lift on a 2010 Ford F-350

In 2016, I ordered a Rough Country 3-inch suspension lift for my 2010 Ford F-350 diesel 4×4. I’m not going to lie, I chose this kit based on price. At $380.00, it was cheaper than Superlift’s 4-inch kit at $730.00, and I didn’t want to pay the extra $350.00 to gain one extra inch.

The Rough Country kit came with:

Coil spring spacers
Radius arm drop brackets
Track bar drop bracket
2-inch rear lift blocks
U-bolts
(4) Premium N2.0 series
Hardware
Instructions

Although installation was not that difficult, I did run in to one MAJOR PROBLEM installing it.

The front of the truck is lifted by placing a 3-inch spacer between the axle housing and the coil spring seat. The spacer is held in place with a new bolt supplied by Rough Country. Rough Country doesn’t tell you what to torque the bolt to. In fact, the only torque spec they list in the directions is for the rear u-bolts. They do have a general SAE torque specs listed next to the kit contents, but nothing that applies to this. While tightening the bolt (by hand – no air tools), I snapped it in two! Fortunately, it broke above the axle, and I was able to remove it by hand.

The problem now became finding the proper size and grade of bolt to replace it.

I grabbed the factory bolt, and found that it had a 10.9 classification

The bolt Rough Country supplied only had a 8.8 classification. The only way I could get a new 14mm x 130mm bolt with a 10.9 classification was to order one online.

Here is a photo of the new bolt (left) with the Rough Country bolt (center), and the factory bolt (right).

In the photo below, you can see the 10.9 rating of the new bolt, next to the 8.8 rating of the Rough Country bolt. I really don’t know why Rough Country would have used bolts that had a lower strength grading than the factory bolt. Especially since it’s a longer bolt, and could likely receive more leverage (force) against it than the stock bolt would have.

I had already completed the passenger side, and broke the bolt installing the drivers side. Realizing that I was using inferior bolts, I had to go back and remove the passenger side so I could re-install it with a proper grade bolt.

Unfortunately, It took about a week for the new bolts to arrive. I had positioned my truck in my shop in a manner that would allow me to have plenty of room to work on the front, thanks to having garage doors on the front and side. This meant that the truck would now be sticking out of the garage for a week. Plus, it was my only means of transportation. Thank goodness for pizza delivery.

With the lift finally installed, Rough Country states that the kit will allow for a 35 x 12.5 inch tire. I can tell you now, that a 35 x 12.5 tire would rub your drivers side radius arm. I ended up going with a 295/70/18 Cooper Discoverer STT PRO, which equates to 34.50 x 12 x 18 inch tire, and still ended up with a little tire rub.

Here you can see how close the drivers side tire gets with the wheel turned (parked). After driving it a little, I found that the very edge of the tire was rubbing a little on sharp left turns.

I like this kit, but can’t recommend it because of the bolt issue. I was actually a little nervous driving it after getting the lift finished, for fear one of the other bolts in the kit would break. If you choose to purchase one, definitely replace the supplied coil spacer bolts with the proper 10.9 spec bolts.

About a year after installing the trip, I took a 22-day (7,600 mile) road trip out to the west coast, and through the Rocky Mountains. I was actually really pleased with the 3-inch lift and tire setup combined with the factory drivetrain and FX4 package. I took some trails back to some mining areas, and the truck performed flawlessly.

I chose the Rough Country kit based on price, but also because I thought that retaining the factory coils would retain the factory ride. The truck rides good, but I’ve had problems with the right front tire cupping. I’ve had the truck aligned twice, and I’ve rotated the tires at least 3-times since they’ve been on. The tires performed great off-road, but after about a year, they needed to be replaced.