DirtyComanche

Snow's over-rated.... We've lost most of ours already. Just the higher elevations that have it. Another month or so and we can wheel something other than snow. I need a tow rig. Damn.

Holy $#!& they got a lot of stuff.

You can't just use them to save departure. Unless you find a leaf with considerably more arch - in which case you could have ran a shackle in a higher position to mimic the same effect. With those, you have to mount them WHERE THE LOWER SHACKLE BOLT WAS. Hence, on a MJ they'd need to be about 5.5-6" down and 1-2" back from the top hanger bolt hole. And that's where the rear leaf bolt (lower shackle bolt) has to be at static position - which should be in the middle of that hanger to allow for the most flex. So they'd actually have to stick farther back than a stock shackle would. If you were to swap them in with the stock leaf springs and maintain the same ride height and NOT screw up the leaf pack geometry - you would have less depature angle than before. And if you want me to get into screwed up leaf pack geometry - realize that there is entire TEXTBOOKS on making leaf springs work. They are NOT as simple as they seem. If they were a wonder, everyone who still ran leaf springs would run them. As it is, I'm not sure what lasting effects or inherent problems they may pose. It looks to me like they are ment more for cars than off-road applications. And yes, running them in the front of the rear leaves would be bad - unless you hard mount the rear of the leaf. Which actually causes another conundrum - say hello to needed a long spline driveshaft and having a poor riding suspension. If you didn't hard mount the rear you will break things - the axle will flop about as nothing will control its movement then; other than if the bolts bottom out on those hangers... And I don't know what a goofy leaf is. I know what buggy leaves are - more correctly called a 3/4 elliptical suspension. They have their own problems. Which I touched on in the other thread - but didn't get into detail on. You can't use those moveable hangers with a setup like that. These setups were (and to an extent still are) common on really SWB vehicles such as GPWs, CJs, and Zukis. But they have 30-40" leaf springs and don't experience the negative effects of this setup anywhere near as much. Still, the zuki guy I knew who ran them went back to a standard leaf setup...

Buggy shackles, or 3/4 elliptical, have their own problems. If you do run them, 3 things... You'll get massive axlewrap without a traction bar. Even then, you'll blow up traction bars... You'll need a long travel driveshaft (pricey...) They are inherently unstable when going downhill, or sidehilling.

Here's a LWB frame, which shows the location of the bed mounts. Image Not Found Here's the details on the bed mounts. I should have used a higher resolution... Image Not Found Oh yeah, have fun with it being in milimeters...

It's straight enough already. Maybe out 1/2" on the front... I've decided to part ways with the unibody. Sorta. I wasn't planning to totally reveal my plans until I'd figured them out... But the gist is to build a new frame with new running gear then pop my old cab off the current one and swap it over. That way I can play around with everything on the frame and wheel the current buildup as is until the frame and everything attached to it (minus the cab and a bit of work related to that) is good to go. Or, it's an idea I'm toying with but may not do because of time constraints. Anyways, I've been working on the dimensioning of this project for a while here, and a diagram that wasn't ment just for alignment would be nicer... I think I've got part of the problem figured out now... JB, I'll get you those diagrams... Your's a SWB or LWB? Looks like they're the same... But, if you could, show me more pictures of how you cut out the cab and attached it to your frame. You ditched the floors and a bunch of the firewall. It's looking like this is the way to go to actually make it sensible...

Or jam the coller over...

I think the idea is worth a shot. You can get lift XJ leaves pretty cheap if it winds up too short. Or bastardize them by reusing some of the lower leafs out of the MJ packs you have to tune them to the right height. They don't flex the best - but they aren't the worst either. Most of the guys with lifted XJs are complaining because they have way too stiff of springs. You just have to figure out the correct location of the rear hanger. Like I said, if you mess it up there will be nasty consequences. My front leaves do weird things because of this - and it will probably destory them given enough time. For the starting point of the rear hanger I'd go foreward 6" from stock, and down 6", measured from the stock hanger bolt (the one that goes through the top of the shackle) - as this should adjust for using those roller shackles and for the loss of spring length. The problem is that you can't tell if it is right without putting the weight of the truck on them. My front looked fine until I set the truck down on it. And if you can't make it work, look at more darastic things... Like chopping the rear frame and building a coil suspension.

I've got this for the model 63 (SWB). Image Not Found And a couple more out of the same book which detail the body mounts for the bed. The problem is it is a frame/body repair diagram and everything is measured off the centre of datum points. Which is fun, but not really what I want. So, anybody have any others? Out of any of the other FSMs?

I vote TPS. It is adjustable and should be checked as it's a lot cheaper than replacing anything...

I actually thought that was what he was doing. But, the problem is.... If you're building your own hangers frame side, what the leaf pack will do is almost entirely up to you. The XJ leaves are very near flat - sometimes inverse if they're old... So, if you used the stock forward hanger you'd probably have about no lift. Or maybe an inch - I think the MJ one is lower than the XJ. That's providing you locate the rear hanger in the ideal point for the leaf pack.

The problem is that if you use those, you will mess up the leaf pack geometry. The shackles have to extend down far enough to make the leaf pack centre flat. If it isn't - it does bad things. My front end is like this, and will need tweaking to fix it. To use them correctly you'd have to drop them to the same height as the old shackle extended too. Really not saving any departure/approach. Oh, I'm concerned with their lubrication. Might be fine, but I think they did it a hokey way in that.

Another trick is for the first coat or two is to use the nozzle top off a spray on bedliner or other high application can. It speeds up things a LOT. Just don't let it run...

Well, not good. Not ideal. Not even something I'd ever want to deal with. But - it will actually hold together like that. For a while at least. If you spin it over by hand do the gears still mesh at that point? It'll go click and the pinion will spin freely for a little while if they aren't. If that's the case - don't even think of using it. Otherwise WTH, it'll last a while on the street. You'll know when its time is up. But don't dare wheel it or do clutch dumps or burnouts or etc... So, your junkyard got warantee? My u-pull-it does...

Nah. YJs are HP. They gayed over the TJ axles. But he doesn't want the housing, jsut the shafts. I hope. Unless he likes leaf springs!

Nope.

They do. Most competitions require it for this reason. And yeah, it is way lighter. The problem with running it on a trail rig is keeping it clean. Any dirt/mud that gets trapped in the line acts as an abrasive and just the stretching of the rope in use causes it to wear heavily. Most of the comp guys that avoid mud like the plauge still have to replace their rope every year as it simply becomes too frayed and failure prone. It also has to be protected from external abrasion - normally with a cover and by not routing it stupid. However, if you f' up and do break it - it can be tied back together providing you know what you're doing. If saving the weight, avoiding getting pricked, and wanting some added safety, outweighs the inherent higher cost of it (due to life) - then more power to ya. I never use my winch anyways. Hence it isn't on the truck. Best of everything that way!

I would be very concerned then... Lengthening a unibody and bad welds aren't really a good combination.

I have one of those (yeah, my seats don't match). I like it, I can see the ground in front of the hood easier.

Why'd you go synthetic?

Pete has a thread where he compared them to exploder leafs. http://comancheclub.com/forums/viewtopi ... s+explorer I think it says in there.

There's a guy on here with a 100" WB MJ. He built a new frame from the cab back IIRC. To actually make a 4-dr XJ/MJ with the bed not welded to the body is a bish. Typically people jsut take a 4dr Xj and cut the back window area off and either re-install the lift gate (metal gates only) or use a chunk of MJ cab to fix the hole. Actually, no matter how you do it they're a bish. NAXJA has a couple builds where they did things like that.

FWIW I don't have a cat. And just run a cherry bomb (straight through glasspack). It's not loud. My friend with an LT1 in his YJ laughs at it when I start it. :roll: Anyways, with the stock exhaust I obliderated the cat after it had a few issues. And I had a pry bar and a bit too much spare time. Exhaust volume increased somewhat. It sounded like your typical quiet car at that point. My intake was still about 10X louder than the exhaust. I think with a straight through cat one would have a similar experience. Then I obliderated the muffler on a rock. It made a really loud buzzing that made me want to kill people. So I removed it. It had three obvious effects - a loss of low end, a gain of mid-high, and it was forking loud. Annoying forking loud. After that I picked up the cherry bomb and bent up the new exhaust. It works fine, low end is back and the high end works well enough. It's not over-restricted (stock) or under-restricted (no exhaust).

I like the camo. I should do my DD in it.

Didn't see a single MJ. And it had no tech articles!