j_gevans Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Finally have me truck to a reliability I trust and now want to lower it a bit. The person I bought it from used it off-roading and had put an 8.5in lift on it. I want to lower it down to a 4.5in to make it more comfortable to drive on the streets but still some off road. I've never done any suspension work on cars before and was wondering if anyone had done anything similar or knows what all would be required for it. Thanks for any advice/help in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 48 minutes ago, j_gevans said: Finally have me truck to a reliability I trust and now want to lower it a bit. The person I bought it from used it off-roading and had put an 8.5in lift on it. I want to lower it down to a 4.5in to make it more comfortable to drive on the streets but still some off road. I've never done any suspension work on cars before and was wondering if anyone had done anything similar or knows what all would be required for it. Thanks for any advice/help in advance. What's required depends on what was done. I have an '88 MJ that had a 4" Trailmaster lift on it when I bought it. It rode like crap and I hated it, so I put it back to stock and I don't think I sacrificed any off-road capability by going back to stock height. In front, I removed the control arm drop brackets, put in stock height coil springs, and stock length shocks. Replaced the Rusty's (crappy) track bar with an OEM track bar. The rear was lifted with AALs, so I removed those and replaced the shocks with stock length shocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 need some pics of what exactly was used to lift it that high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse J Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 11 minutes ago, Pete M said: need some pics of what exactly was used to lift it that high. hopefully it doesn't have a huge long arm or link setup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_gevans Posted February 21, 2021 Author Share Posted February 21, 2021 22 minutes ago, Pete M said: need some pics of what exactly was used to lift it that high. Here are some. Let me know if you need anything specific Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghetdjc320 Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 So, from the pics, swapping the long shackles there to stick shackles should lower you back down to about 5.5” in the rear. Removing the front coil spacers should bring it down another 2 or so inches. Those shocks are almost maxed out! Your also missing the rear bump stops over the axle. Going lower will actually require more work. If you can settle on about a 5.5” lift you can simply modify what you have there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghetdjc320 Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 Also those away bar links are crazy long lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 what do the front lower arms and steering links consist of? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 The rear axles has been modified to put the leaf springs on top of the axle. The factory setup is spring-under. From the photo, it looks like the factory spring pads have been removed from the underside of the axle tubes, so going back to a stock setup will require either welding on new pads, or re-re-locating the ones that are there now. (Or swapping in a stock axle.) Here's your dilemma: Once you add up the numbers of axle tube diameter, spring perch height and offset, and spring pack thickness, the MINIMUM amount of lift from a spring-over conversion is about 5-1/2 inches. So if you want to get to 4-1/2 inches, w you WILL have to undo the spring-over conversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 which rear axle do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dzimm Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 4 hours ago, Eagle said: The rear axles has been modified to put the leaf springs on top of the axle. The factory setup is spring-under. From the photo, it looks like the factory spring pads have been removed from the underside of the axle tubes, so going back to a stock setup will require either welding on new pads, or re-re-locating the ones that are there now. (Or swapping in a stock axle.) Here's your dilemma: Once you add up the numbers of axle tube diameter, spring perch height and offset, and spring pack thickness, the MINIMUM amount of lift from a spring-over conversion is about 5-1/2 inches. So if you want to get to 4-1/2 inches, w you WILL have to undo the spring-over conversion. This^^^^ very important to know. When the OP said 8+ inches I was expecting a cobbled mess but this actually looks like the lift was done well for the setup it's using. At least there is no undoing cobbled crap with this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghetdjc320 Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 From what the original poster sent us it looks like a fairly straightforward process to get it back down to 5.5”. Going lower than that could get pricey and involve a lot of work. Nix the shackles and spacers and see what that nets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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