And not necessarily. Have you heard of Unimogs?

In the rest of the world everyone is running these sweet small axles that mimic unimog axles. I wish I could get a set!!

Do want

What about them?

Greater differential height can be achieved by replacing the Jeep axles with Unimog axles, which are designed not to be centered at the wheel.

Just to say, this is done without touching the size of the tire.

Which proves my point. You achieve ground clearance my Relocating your axles, NOT by lifting your suspension. I'll rephrase, short of using an axle that is not mounted to the center of your wheels, tire diameter is the only way to achieve additional ground clearance. I'm not saying 4.5 are useless, or trying to pick a fight. I think they look great and perform. You made two false statements to someone who is new to the sport. Just trying to correct that so he is well informed.
1. 4.5 does not give you more ground clearance than 3.
2. 3" lift can crawl way more than just the mall.

Please note I'm not agreeing with your point; nor proving it. I posted diagrams earlier, which I will re-post here if you missed it:



I would really appreciate if you read that conclusion and agreed to give and take on our opinions here.

Edit:

To go further, axle height only applies in offroading situations where you are driving over obstacles that don't span the full width of the axle, such as small rocks. This is because no matter the point where your differentials come near the ground, they will always be that tire-height away from the ground. No matter what (unless you get a flat tire).

The terrain choice motorcharge posted earlier shows a situation where your rule of thumb could be applied, but there are situations too where my rule of thumb can be applied and it would be foolish to ignore either rule of thumbs.

Also, here is a real-life example. You can see how my tires and axles are able to easily crawl over this obstacle, however if I was not 6.5 inches high, I would have bottomed out somewhere near the crossmember EVEN though my front axle made it over:

I use my sliders and such to pivot around obstacles I can't clear.

The rock to the right of the toyota. A 10 inch lift would not clear it. I used my sliders to pivot around the rock.

Rock sliders are a good way to weasel out of situations where lift wont.

That rock is one of the rocky situations that I don't encounter at Withlacoochee.

It would be pretty cool to get to drive down streams like that.

Your a patient man Holycaveman, I give you credit. I'm gonna unsubscribe to this thread now. Maybe crawl the mall with my 3" or get stuck on one of these ^.

I have to drive 3hrs to get there. Where is withlacoochee?

It's about an hour to an hour and a half from me in mid-state Florida.



The A marks Withlacoochee

Ok, I spent a couple months in Ocala.

Nice, you would be just a smidge closer to it than I would be.