Lift Question I Know It's Been Asked A Million Times

[Cmbechtold]

so I know this question has come up to many times but I never found a solid answer what are the pros and cons to a rustys 4.5 long arm lift?Also what are the problems I will run into when installing? I know everyone on here is gonna say go with the SOA but I have do not know how to weld and I have no acces to a friend that does so the only way I could do it is to pay someone and I have a feeling I'd be paying an arm and a leg for that...

[48MJ]

I've got several Comanches one with about a 3.5" bastard pack and one with a spring over. Both work great I don't think new spring perches and welding should cost a fortune. The bastard pack does work great though. It is  7 leaves and flexes well, it is on a truck that I used for towing and did not want the soa height and wanted to keep it a little stiffer. A bastard pack is very experimental your kind of on your own. SOA is better for knowing what the outcome will be but will probably be about 5.5" ( thats about what I got). It pretty much depends on what you want to use your truck for. The long arm is just on the front and over 3.5" I would recommend a long arm set up for the ride and flex.

[Blue XJ]

Just a comment about SOA or not.  I am running 6.5" SUA springs on mine with an extended shackle.  The ride quality is actually much nicer than I expected once I put qood quality shocks on it.  I ran cheap Gabriels that fit for a while and it rode like a dump truck, not I have Bilstein 5125's out back, and it rides almost as good as stock in my opinion.    So I wouldn't worry too much about ride quality if you remain spring under.

[Cmbechtold]

Ok I'm gonna be about 70% on road so I want it to ride pretty smooth still just didn't know if I would run into any problems with the rustys long arm lift when I put it on thanks

[Blue XJ]

Yeah, sorry I couldn't help with that, I just figured I'd chime in and say you can get a good ride out of quality leaf springs as long as you are using quality shocks.   I am running a Rock Krawler 3 link kit for a Cherokee on mine, it installed with no issues, however it is considerably different than the Rusty's kit.

[Lee21490]

so I know this question has come up to many times but I never found a solid answer what are the pros and cons to a rustys 4.5 long arm lift?Also what are the problems I will run into when installing? I know everyone on here is gonna say go with the SOA but I have do not know how to weld and I have no acces to a friend that does so the only way I could do it is to pay someone and I have a feeling I'd be paying an arm and a leg for that...

 

They do sell SOA kits that are just bolt on. They use the old spring perch to center/hold the new perch on.

 

Not sure how well it actually works. But it looks good to me.

 

Could always just pay a shop $50~ to weld perches on the axle for you.