What coil-over spring and shock combo would you guys recommend for ditching the T-bars on a rig with factory ride height? What would be a reasonable price to have them installed at a fab shop? The clunking at the key pads on my 96 is starting to get to me.
Hard to answer this, as all shops are different, and parts vary greatly in pricing. The only thing a shop would be needed for is to weld the gussets, but if you can do that, this is a driveway mod for those with a little mechanical know how.
For low end coil shocks, about $400 /pair. For mid range coil shocks about $650 /pair. High end can reach over $2000/pair or more. Coils are generally around $75/ea. Now the brackets vary, depending on how you get them. There might be a guy in TX still making them and he advertises them on ranger station & ranger forums. I wanna say around $300 for the kit w/hardware. Limit straps are around $20/ea. BTF UCA's are around $600/pair. +/- 4* cams are about $60. Now these are all general prices, but should be fairly close to give you an idea what a new setup costs.
Depending on how much over stock in weight add on's you have, and what lift your after for coils. Completely stock V-6 should be able to run 650# alright. A V-8 needs at least 750#. When you add items such as a winch, your going to want to crank more to compensate, or go up in coil tension strength rating. I use an oversized coil on mine, to help compensate with the cranking for lift, and add on items. This won't work on a setup with no lift well, as the purpose is to be able to crank the spinner nuts down the tube for lift, but without running out of threads. For no lift, no drop, the nuts should be no lower then 60% of the tube body. You start to get coil bind after that. Coil bind is when the spring touches each other.
This is hard to get right the first time, and most of us go thru a couple of different rated coils, before we get it dialed in for our applications.
Hope that helps!
What's the reason you guys replace the lower arms?
Depends. Some don't want to mess with the ball joint, some want new bushings, but don't want to deal with only replacing the old ones. Some have out worn hex holes and the bars spun. Some just want all new. Me, I have just replaced, what I needed replaced, as I needed it. I might get a new set, and use the old set to fabricate some bolt on skids, then add them to the new set. Someday....