Has anyone seen or herd anything about lifting a nitro. i want to lift it 2-4 inches.

Yes, In fact I know of one that has done it and since reversed the lift.

Here is the problem. If you look at the profile of the front wheel opening you will see that there is a return on the bottom that narrows the opening almost to contour the tire. If you lift the chassis you will put the fattest part of your tire in a narrower opening than it was meant to be in. Thus, the 29 1/2" tire that comes stock on the R/T will even rub at the bottom.

So unless you want to use smaller tires than stock (who would do this?) you would be forced to modify the flares and the body panels that are behind the wheels. There is a rib where the inner fender, floor and firewall come together behind the inner wheel well that is only about 1/4" behind your plastic wheel well. If you push on it just a little you will feel it. This rib is approx. 1" deep so if you only want a 31" tire, you could remove the inner wheel well and cut off this rib and re-weld it to gain that space, then just modify the inner wheel well with some cheap plastic to extend it back against the new profile but I would think that was a lot of work for 1 1/2" worth of tire.

It is easier to lower this vehicle than it is to raise it. One more reason I think Chrysler will drop it within one more year. 2009 Nitro, I don't think so.

All of that being said, why did you buy a Nitro to lift it. Wouldn't you have been better off with the liberty?

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2007 Nitro R/T, Chrome Bug Deflector , In Channel Vent Guards, Stainless Bull Bar and Nerf Bars.

Yeppers, you are correct about an initial lift without modification. But, the largest tire you can run is actually 30.5". You can do this without a lift, you just have to modify the flange area like you are talking about. Any tire larger than this will hit the lower footwell even with the flange bent over.

You can go to many of several web sites that sell lift kits for Libertys and find that the largest tire they recommend even with a lift is 30.5".

As to who would do the modification. Well, for one I would so I could run 10.5" wide A/T tires. They are 30.5" diameter and just touch on the corners of the tires in the wheel wells on full lock turns.

Here is what I had to do. I bent the seam over and sealed it again.



Added some bracing and then resealed the wheel well.


This is the opposite side. You can see where I removed all the lower colored plastic from the wheel well and trimmed the colored plastic sides of the wheel well to about a 2" width to prevent rubbing. If the pix confuses you a little, I added color matched splash guards, then trimmed those. It was the only way this trimming process would have looked good from the outside.


So, who would do this. Anyone that can, has the ability and desire to run an over-sized tire A/T tire. I could lift this Nitro, but I have no reason to do so. It would not provide any additional clearance in the wheel wells.

Can you post another pic directly form the side. Intersted in doing this. Bigger is honestly better

Before you dive off into this, you need to know what you are getting into.

This is a pic. of the body seam. It protrudes about an inch out from the footwell. The original inner wheel well is about a 1/4" out in front of that.



If you are going to bend this seam over, the first thing you have to do is remove the offset bend and bulge at the top of the seam on the inside. Otherwise, you will never bend the seam all the way over. I used a cutoff wheel.




After that you will have to use a 16lb sledge hammer to flatten the seam against the footwell. Seal it with brush on seam sealer and paint it back to match factory colors. You can also see where I added bracing to hold the bottom of the exterior fender attached to the bottom of the footwell, and also to hold on the new inner fender well. I used the top off a Rubbermaid tub storage container to fashion the new inner fender wells. They have held up well. Refer to my previous post for final look at inner wheel well installed.




I will have to get you a picture straight on of the front wheel if that is what you want. I don't have any presently.

My "Who would do this" was not in reference to adding bigger tires MBN, It was to lifting a vehicle and using smaller tires than original.

Great work by the way, and thanks for the pics, I tried to explain it the best I could but the pics do a much better job.

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2007 Nitro R/T, Chrome Bug Deflector , In Channel Vent Guards, Stainless Bull Bar and Nerf Bars.