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Build Planner / Clearance

Clearance

Take a tape measure to the truck for its real approach, breakover and departure angles and what clears under the diffs and rockers. Then see what bigger tires, more lift or a new bumper buys you, which end of the truck gains the most, and the bumpers listed for it.

How to use this 3 steps
  1. Park and pickPark on flat ground at normal ride height. Pick your truck and put in the tire and lift on it now.
  2. Measure A to EWith a tape measure, use the drawing to take the front bumper corner, the lowest point out back and the lowest point in the middle. Five numbers.
  3. See your real anglesThe result gives the approach, breakover and departure angles your truck actually has as it sits, next to factory, and which fix gains the most.

Everything below is optional. What's under the truck, your bumpers and planned mods add detail when you want it.

As it sits
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Park on flat ground at normal ride height. Every height is from the ground; every distance is level, from the center of the wheel.

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Out back, the bumper often isn't what hits first. Lay a straightedge from the bottom of the rear tire up toward the back of the truck: the first thing it touches sets your departure angle, and on a lot of trucks that's the exhaust tip, a muffler hanger or the hitch.

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The bumper corner is the lowest point at the very front or back that would touch first going up a ledge, often the bottom corner of the bumper or a winch mount. C is usually a skid plate, the transfer case or the frame.

Under the truck and bumpers Optional

Heights from the ground to the bottom of each diff and the rockers, and which bumpers are on the truck. They fill out the clearance table, and diff height counts toward the leaderboards.

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Planned mods
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Raises the body and rockers only. Bumpers bolted to the frame, skids and diffs stay where they are.

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New heights are as they'd sit on your truck today, before the new tires or lift. A buddy's numbers on the same truck work fine. A tucked or high-exit exhaust counts here too: if the tailpipe was your lowest rear point, enter whatever becomes the lowest point once it's gone, usually the bumper or hitch.

Measure the two bumper corners and the lowest point in the middle, and this works out your real angles.

How the numbers work

How does it get angles from a tape measure?

The approach angle is a line from the ground, tangent to the front tire, that just touches the lowest front corner. With the tire size, the corner's height and its distance from the wheel center, there's only one line that fits. Breakover is the same thing twice, from each tire to the lowest point in the middle.

What counts as the bumper corner?

Whatever would touch first if you drove the nose straight into a ledge. On a winch bumper that's often the winch mount or the bottom of the fairlead, which can sit lower than the bumper wings. Lay a straight board from the tread to the bumper if you're not sure which point it is.

What sets the departure angle?

Whatever hangs lowest toward the back. On a lot of trucks that's the exhaust tip, a muffler hanger, the spare or the hitch receiver before it's the bumper. Lay a straightedge from the bottom of the rear tire toward the back of the truck, and the first thing it touches is your D and E.

Do skid plates cost clearance?

A skid bolts under what it protects, so it sits a little lower than the part itself. Measure C with the skids on, since that's what touches first. Some skids are shaped to tuck up flatter than the factory parts they cover, and those can gain breakover.

Use at your own risk. These calculators are here to help you plan and to inform your decisions, not to sign off on a build. Many numbers are estimates worked out from factory figures, and some factory figures are not yet confirmed. Check every number against your own truck, its manuals and a qualified shop before you buy parts, cut, weld, lift, regear or drive on it. Long Range Desert Tools is not liable for anything you do based on these calculators or their results. The full terms are in our policies.