94 FW Leaf Sprung on 38.5s | Page 2 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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94 FW Leaf Sprung on 38.5s

Hey y'all, just got mine on tires Friday night, and thought I'd post up my progress on it..... its just about done, I just have a few bugs out that I'll be asking about in either this thread or another one. but onto the stats.

Full Width HPD44 Front
5.38 gears
Welded spiders
FSJ front leafs re-arched 8"

Full Width 9" Rear
5.43 gears
Full Spool
re-arched Explorer leafs 8"

Still need to finish Driveshafts, steering, brakes, and fluids.... but here's a pic until I can get some daytime pics and suspension shots up....

420202_207_full.jpg


thanks for lookin
--Ryan
 



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Maybee you cut a little too much off of one side when you were cuttin the frame.. or when you were welding the front leaf rear shackle mount one pulled.. Just some thoughts.. O yeah just cuz some springs look the same doesnt mean they will compress the same.. Did you measure the eyes on each shackle?
 



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splodo49 said:
Did you measure the eyes on each shackle?

to be honest, no I didn't. I just sat them next to each other, eyes down, and made sure they were the same height and length. dang.... I hate problems. alright, I guess I may have to take the front end apart to measure them.

--Ryan
 






Just Measure the springs on the truck. Eye to Eye. Different measurements lengths would cause your problem. Even if they are the same leafs if you had them rearched they could be different. Your shackle angle doesn't look the best might look into that too. Those mounts look like they need to braced some more and welded some more- I guess that is obvious if they broke. It would be a much stronger setup to move in the leaf spring pads on the axle and mount tha springs under the frame horns- unless of course that is limited by the 3rd memeber.
 






Kirby N. said:
Just Measure the springs on the truck. Eye to Eye. Different measurements lengths would cause your problem. Even if they are the same leafs if you had them rearched they could be different. Your shackle angle doesn't look the best might look into that too. Those mounts look like they need to braced some more and welded some more- I guess that is obvious if they broke. It would be a much stronger setup to move in the leaf spring pads on the axle and mount tha springs under the frame horns- unless of course that is limited by the 3rd memeber.

its limited by the 3rd member..... the mounts never broke, but we really can't move them back any farther without major surgery to the truck (ie.... relocating the body mounts), the mounts are already right up next to the body mounts.... I'm gonna do some tweakin and see if anyhting happens.
 






that is quite the beast...ya the front shackle mounts look interesting...when i did mine i used F250 mounts...have a look at my page...maybe give ya an idea...ya i don't think the 38.5s are big enough for the amount of lift ya got...mine are the same size and i'm WAY lower...looks tough though...as for front spring ideas...i'm not sure why the shackle angle is different other than the ideas previously mentioned...here's the link to my pics...
http://photobucket.com/albums/c332/hazardiz/staight axle/
 












well it did the job...on the way up that is...on the way back down the wood broke and my front headlight collided with his...broke lights on both trucks...it was funny...cause we just went in the back 40 and grabbed another set...gotta work with what ya got...we had wood and a fullwidth ranger...haha... :D
 






I think you are going to have to rework those shackle hangers, or get longer springs. When I saw the pics, the first thing that went through my head was that it looked like your shackle was going to fold foward when you flexed and when you compressed it, the shackle was going to keep going foward and bend the main leaf. Sounds like you might have already done that. If you rework the shackle, look for a 45 degree angle.

Personally, I would move the shackle to the front. Good old tried and true method, go with a shorter shackle, so it will be a little lower and you wont have to run a long travel front driveshaft. Just my .02
 






Just an update from my dead build thread. I drove it for the first time tonight. It'll take a little gettin used to....... The speedo's WAY off (figured, and don't care), she wanders BAD (that's b/c of the TEMP scary steering :D ), and it turns more to the left than the right (but that's my mistake.... I was tired, and missed the alignment of the pitman arm). I also have a SMALL leak coming from somewhere between the tranny and t-case (it was dark and I couldn't see where), my front drivers banjo bolt on the caliper is leaking (no biggie), and I don't have shocks (waitin to flex her out to find the ideal placement of the shock. That is just a small update of my first time out since the swap.

--ryan
 






You might want to take a look at your caster angle too. You want between 3-7* back like this / not forward like this \. I'd rotate that pinion down a bit to get a better caster angle. Just my .02
 






I can't rotate the pinion down b/c my pinion angle now is good, I am however gonna cut and turn the knuckles to fix the caster.

--ryan
 






Man! That is NOT what I wanted to hear about the speedo! Now I have to figure out how to get mine working. I have a friend coming over tonight to start fabricating the trans crossmember. I hope to have mine done this weekend, and get a shakedown run in next week sometime. I got the taurus fan up and running a few days ago, and I still need to get the OBA/ARB hooked up.

How's your front driveline? My driveshaft is going to be all of 21 inches long! The rear needs to be 54.5. It figures since I just had brand spanking new ones built for the C5 swap, but now that I'm running the C4/Dana 20 setup, I have to get them modded. All of 5 miles on those other ones. :fire:
 






my rear d-shaft is something like 70" long if I remember correctly. not sure about eh front, b/c I haven't built it yet. I'm gonna do my hi-steer and build some shorter front shackles b4 I do the front end. it does drive though, and I just got exahust built for it, she runs dang good.

--ryan
 






My Transmission X-member is almost done!!!! Driveshafts are next, then I'll be rolling again. I have to install my Warrior 2" lift shackles today, and put the flares on too. she should be rolling by the end of the week. :cool:

I'll post a couple pics of my crossmember for you, I know you said something about redesigning yours.
 






yea man, post em up. I'm interested to see how you did it....... I just bought a new tow rig, (04 F-250 6.0 on 35s :D ) so I'm on hold on the Explorer for a bit, until I can get payments goin on the tow rig.
 






mine is sort of the same as yours, except it's a little lower profile, and I ran 2 tubes across, and put laddre rungs between the tubes. Hard to explain, but it's pretty stout. almost the entire thing tucks up higher than the radius arm mounts. I wanted to stay as low profile as I could.
 






OK, I have pics for ya! Enjoy!

673587.jpg


673590.jpg


673591.jpg


673594.jpg
 






That looks REALLY good man. nice a beefy..... I may have to borrow that idea from ya, my question is, why si the front of the xmember farther down then the rear (from the picstures it looks that way anyway)?? you could angle the front up and make it double as a skid plate.

--Ryan
 






The passanger side could have been tucked up a bit more. It's really not as far down as it looks in the pics, though. the radius arm mounts are lower than the x.member. The idea behind the design was to act as a skid plate. initially I was going to plate the bottom, but then I wouldn't be able to see the fluis in the T-Case. I have one of the clear covers on it. And I also wanted to be able to drain it easily. So I just used the ladder bars instead of plate.
 



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well, I got my driveshafts back, and installed. The tcase works fine with them disconnected, but as soon as I connect them up, I get nothing. I think the fluid is low, despite the reading of it being full. Tomorrow I'll try adding a quart and see if I get some motion out of it, right now I feel sick to my stomach about it. :(
 






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