Rear Leaf Spring mod with Durango Springs
Very cool write-up, way to be resourceful :glasses7: This would work on my '70 Duster but I'm probably going all-new with the rear springs when I swap to an 8 3/4".
Do you happen to know if those Durango leaves will fit on a Jeep Cherokee XJ? I have a '93 with 200k+ miles and the rear end sags a bit, would be great to have an extra 2" or so (lol that came out wrong :blackeye:)
Well first, even if you wanted to do this swap you'd need different u-bolts than I used for an 8 3/4, I doubt an 8 3/4 has 2 3/8 axletubes.
For a jeep I don't know. The thing that will make the biggest difference, is if the factory springs have a front or rear bias like the Durango leaves do. I don't know what Jeeps do, but if they don't have any bias, putting those leaves on will put more spring tension either to the front or back of the axle, and it'll mess up your pinion angle. I don't know by how much. I know the bias on the durango springs was a little different than the bias on my a-body springs, but it didn't mess up my pinion angle appreciably.:-k
furydan said
That gives me some hope...I just bought a used set of super stock springs from a local guy and it turns out that the main spring of one of them is broken. I wonder if I could used the main spring from my old set with the other leafs from the ss set to fix the issue. The guy who sold the springs will not refund my money. Hmmmm..worth a try I guess. Just have to get a set of the spring clamps.."stabilizers".
Well, one thing with superstock springs, which I was looking into before going into this. the main leaf on them is longer than the factory a-body spring, so putting the spring pack under the factory top leaf will greately ease installation, since you won't have to weld in new spring shackle mounts.
only thing to keep in mind, with the super stockers being five leaves on the driver side, and eight on the other, you'll need to replace the spring pack studs with longer ones to accommodate the extra leaves. I was originally planning to do this, actually, until I discovered I could get the nut off without having to take the axle loose and putting pliers on the other end of it. I was going to replace them with grade 8 allen head cap screws.