Henry J got me thinking about the lift options

malkavian · Post by **malkavian** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:20 pm

I have just about all the money to buy the super lift and wheels and tires but after reading a few threads I deciided to hold off till I could see what HJ is comming up with and have been considering doing a sfa . I have a xj for 100.00 I can buy it and strip what ever I want or need off it. I have also come across a local who has a totaled rubicon he bought back off his insurance company. I can get the rub at a good price also and am considering it. I am now looking into the problams that I would run into with swapping over the front and rear diff and the transfer case out of the rub into the crew cab.

My only real problem is trying to decide on leaf or coil spring for the swap if I do it. The rub is coil all around and if I want to swap over to coil all around on the crew then I will have to spend some money on a beater to drive to work till it is done or just ride the bike rain or shine. I do have a mig and tig welder and a plasma cutter, a cheap tubeing bender. Im heading over in the morning to measure widths and stucc on the rub to compare to the cc. Any input I will greatly appreciate.

bubaloo1983 · Post by **bubaloo1983** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:49 pm

Doing coils on the crew is not easy. I was going to attempt it on mine but went with leafs instead. there are to many points with trailing arms and coils that make it alot to set up. there is alot of cutting and moving and fabbing you will need to do. The instantwe put the coiled axle under the crew i knew it was going to be hard. everything just went to know where lol. Arms where in line with the oil pan and the frame wasnt even close to the lower radius arms and the coils arent spced where they need to be for mounting. you will basically need to make coils work they wont just be able to weld on parts and go. i would would go leafs Unless you have alot of time and money. If thats the case go for it! it takes 2 days to set up leafs if you have metal experience. I little longer if you dont work on it all day or only work on it here and there. I did mine over 2 weeks, but had the leafs set up and ifs out in less then 3 days.
In terms of an ifs lift i also am against it after owning mine for a year. It wasnt worth it with all the troubles. anything over a 31 inch tire and your hooped. You will start to notice guys on here are talking about ball joint troubles and front end noises now after having the superlift for awhile ( or any other lift) our trucks just cant take the beating upfront. Even without wheeling it. I only wheeled like every 6 months with my lift and it fell apart after one wheel and a year of street, i had orginally 32 inch tires and went to 35s, but even then guys with 31s are having problems i was just stupid to go 35s lol.

If you do an sfa i think you will like it. I wish i had done it from to begin with for moneys sake. i would be rich right now if i spent the 1500 on parts and time for mf sfa to begin with instead of my 6000 something grand for wheels tires lift and gears on my ifs before.

Just my thoughts think it over

and good luck

malkavian · Post by **malkavian** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:38 pm

Im thinking like you on this subject. The coils would be cool but it looks like a lot more fab work. If I make sure I have everything I need and get all the parts before I start I should be able to do the leaf spring set up within 2 weeks. I will only have about 2 days a weeks to work on it. Im just trying to decide on the rubicon right now. would be nice to have the d44's with air lockers and that t case.

Im really not looking for a crazy amount of lift. Ill do spring over, and my goal is to run 33's my off roading I would rate as moderate and live my the rule of if you can drive around it then drive around it.

Thanks for your input on the coil spring setup.

adrenalnjunky · Post by **adrenalnjunky** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:49 pm

bub - what did you have to do to that Dana30 to make it work with your leafs - The Cherokee it came out of was coils right? - plus I thought those were passenger side drop, not driver side?

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:12 pm

malkavian wrote:I'm thinking like you on this subject. The coils would be cool but it looks like a lot more fab work.

The coils vs leafs issue was one of the (many) things that killed my Blazer project. I intended to do a leaf spring setup. I made the mistake of not researching enough and bought the front and rear axles out of a full sized Bronco. Ford 9" rear and high pinion Dana 44 front. Hey great! Right? Wrong! Turns out the '78-'79 Dana 44's used in Broncos and F150 had special end castings. Basically, I had to use the Ford radius arm setup and coils. There was no way to mount leafs on it. I would have had to fab up a Ford style radius arm suspension for the front. Major pain in the #$$. Anyway, I still have the axles and can't seem to give them away.

If I had it to do over? Leafs, period. Someday, I might still SFA the "newer" Blazer I got and who knows? Maybe I might do the Crewcab. I'm waiting patiently to see what HJ comes up with.

bubaloo1983 · Post by **bubaloo1983** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 5:32 pm

adrenal,

i had to fab up the front crossmember, rear shackle hangers ( i hate shackles upfront on sfa) leaf mounting pads welded to the axle and shock mounting points.

I also had to plasma off all the stock sus brackets

They are driver dide drop, i saw i jeep today that was passenger side so there must be a difference somewhere on the jeep line.

malkavian · Post by **malkavian** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:27 pm

Rusty wrote:
malkavian wrote:I'm thinking like you on this subject. The coils would be cool but it looks like a lot more fab work.

The coils vs leafs issue was one of the (many) things that killed my Blazer project. I intended to do a leaf spring setup. I made the mistake of not researching enough and bought the front and rear axles out of a full sized Bronco. Ford 9" rear and high pinion Dana 44 front. Hey great! Right? Wrong! Turns out the '78-'79 Dana 44's used in Broncos and F150 had special end castings. Basically, I had to use the Ford radius arm setup and coils. There was no way to mount leafs on it. I would have had to fab up a Ford style radius arm suspension for the front. Major pain in the #$$. Anyway, I still have the axles and can't seem to give them away.

If I had it to do over? Leafs, period. Someday, I might still SFA the "newer" Blazer I got and who knows? Maybe I might do the Crewcab. I'm waiting patiently to see what HJ comes up with.

Yeah Im still going to wait and see what HJ has up his sleve but I think I may still buy the rubicon and just hold on to it. I figure I can part it out and make my money back If I cant use it.