Another "on the cheap" build idea..

[Nedwreck]

I like my 6" lift '92 Explorer. It is sadly really top heavy for my terrain. So I'm thinking about another X to play and work with. To get in a few of my places, I have to skirt hills and whatnot. My current X will pucker ya right up. One guy seriously threatened to get out when "Tippy" (my X) showed her colors.

So my target is long wheel travel with lowest possible ride height. and of course cheap. I'm cheap and I'm proud of it. ha!
The tricks for 2" lift up front (F150 coil seats, etc) seem alright, but there's not alot of travel that way.

Over on TRS, there's a writeup about using Jeep XJ Springs:
http://therangerstation.com/Magazine/Fall2003/MaximumFlexForTheTTB.htm

This seems to be based around a 4" lift kit.

So.. Can I move the frame mounted spring bucket up two inches or so, keep the stock TTB pivots, and gain lots of droop with the YJ springs? I figure radius arms are going to need lengthening. Hoping this works out with 2" of "lift" over stock height.

There's a lot more to it. Talking in general terms to start off.

Tire-wise I'm thinking tall/skinny. maybe 245/85/16's? Wider won't hurt, just lots of fender trimming.

Would like to get away with (materials) springs, shocks, some metal (box tube for radius arms, heavy plate for bucket relocation, etc.), perhaps a 2" pitman, and assorted whatnots.

I do weld well BTW, and understand fab work a good bit. Overkill is just right.

Of course we have umpteen options for the back end.

The age-old "how can i get more without $500 in TTB brackets" just never goes away around here does it?

Thoughts?

 

[Anime]

Droop isn't a problem with the TTB, since it is independent suspension. The lack of travel problem with the TTB lies in the lack of being able to stuff the tire without a fair amount of lift since the stock bump stops are so close to the TTB.

You can get lots of droop just using soft springs, removing the front sway bar, and going with extended radius arms. Hack up the front fenders or go with fiberglass and you can fit bigger tires. You won't get much, if any, more Stuff though.

Moving the spring bucket is an option, but it seems like a lot of work compared to just getting springs with the height for the application. If you want the best of both worlds, the fairly underused option is a TTB cut-and-turn, but only enough to deal with the slight increase in height. This gets you the lift, the increased travel...but with both increased droop AND stuff. Should cram 33x10.50R15's and be what you want, flexy with minimal lift.

 

[Maniak]

We are using James Duff 3.5" springs with the 2.5" drop brackets up front with no sway bars and use f-250 shock mounts..

We can stuff the tire into the fender far enough to hit the airbox/flat part of the fender.

Droop is pretty good too.. the drivers front isn't maxed out (stuff) in this pic yet.

Thanks to the f-250 mounts we can run these front shocks.. the 999012 (12" travel)

btw.. before the f-250 shock mounts, the shocks were actually our limiting factor.. We couldn't go any longer without topping out the shocks (breaking lower mounts)..

EDIT: Almost forgot.. here is what it looks like with "roughtly" 4" of lift with 33x12.50's.. Its a modified Duff 2.5" lift (now had duff 3.5" springs) with 1/2" spacers.. The rear springs are a modified worn OME-36 springs. that I put an f-150 leaf in to replace one leaf in the pack..

~Mark

 

[Nedwreck]

Good stance there Maniak. Thanks for info too Anime.

Looking a stocker (with saggy springs) I saw about 2" of up travel between axle and bumpstop. With two inches higher static height am looking at 4-5" of available up travel. Long soft springs outta give me plenty total travel.

Am toying with the math on something... experiments of course... If I can set the upper spring mount such that the XJ spring barely falls short of binding when it meets the bump stop, then max travel should be available. Spring rates and all that will be important!

Of course, with Anime's suggestions.. that's an easier first step to see what I get! Will pull shocks on a stocker and see how tha factors. nothing as convincing as doing something one self, eh?

and Maniak...

I looked my current ride over again.. and yes I believe the shock is surely limiting up travel. So will look into that too. thanks for the tip.

here's linky with pics in another thread of the current ride:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2197805&postcount=203
Comments welcome on that one too. It's a good truck just sits too high to angle into creek bottoms and such.

 

[jg09]

Is there really such a thing as cheap long travel?

 

[Freshmeat]

I'm running 34x10.50x15s on 15x8s with 4" BS on Skyjacker 132S coils and ******* packed leaves. Zero rubbing after spending the time to trim the inner and outer fenders, as well as hammering the pinch seams. No F150 seats, body lifts, or drop brackets. Next suspension tweak will be the F250 shock towers to allow for better droop than I have.

 

[mounty71]

You keep saying Jeep YJ springs, but YJs have leaf springs front and rear. The author of the article mentions using XJ springs (cherokee).

 

[Nedwreck]

You keep saying Jeep YJ springs, but YJs have leaf springs front and rear. The author of the article mentions using XJ springs (cherokee).

You, Sir, are correct. Not being a Jeep guy, I goofed.

Did have a J10 once... tough as nails.. 6 banger and all!

 

[Four0Sport]

I was thinking about the same idea over the past few days. My 4" lifted Sport was a little top heavy and bouncy for the trails we were on, not to mention wide. I'm thinking about putting my BroncoII back on the road and doing some cheap mods to help it clear32s and have some suspension travel while keeping its COG lower.

So far this is what I have in mind..

2" BL, rear shackles, either f-150 spring seats or some used Jeep coils, and extended radius arms.. these are a must

A cheap enough build that should give me decent travel for what I'm using it for. I hate BLs but in this case I'm going to use one. Not only will it help me clear the larger tires, it will make replacing the busted 2.9 much easier.

Good idea? its not the best, but its gonna be a tight budget build. If I didnt have to find a motor I was going to do a SAS on it.

 

[glfredrick]

Is there really such a thing as cheap long travel?

Yup...

I laid it all out in this thead.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums//showthread.php?t=237302

I could stuff 33s, had close to 18" travel, and was low. No problem wheeling in Kentucky or any other place, for that matter...

About some of the above stuff...

XJ (or TJ - ZJ) springs are WAY too soft. WAY WAY WAY. I used 1977 Ford F150 coils which were still soft, but managable.

You'll probably never get the front end aligned properly. Just have to live with that. Rotate tires often. No big deal off-road.

An option for your 6" lifted model -- pocket the front of the rear springs into the frame rail instead of hanging them under with the brackets. I was going to do that as my next mod, but sold the truck to Jman in Chicago.

That would have netted me about 3.5" of rear lift and eliminated that rock-loving spring hanger.

 

[mounty71]

glfrederick - By cutting the spring mount into the frame, that would actually lower the rear a little bit, no? Or are you saying to do that in addition to whatever else you had done to the rear would have given you 3.5" (i haven't gone through to see what you have done to your truck)?

 

[glfredrick]

I never got around to actually doing the mod, but what it entailed was a spring over, then pocket the front hanger of the leaf spring into the frame rail right where the factory mount was hung. In fact, I was going to take the factory mount and use it as the pocket -- just weld it into place, then plate over it for strength.

A spring over gives about 5.5" lift with stock springs. Pocketing the leaf springs would have reduced this by about 2".

I sort of got the idea by comparing the Explorer frame with the Ranger frame -- the Ranger is a straight frame -- it has no kick up after the driver's doors like the Explorer. Off-road, the Ranger frame works out much better, as it doesn't drag over every obstacle.

It would also probably be possible to stick an Explorer body on a Ranger frame if one was willing to channel the rear floorboards, but that would be a big job compared to just doing the leaf spring mod.

 

[4x4junkie]

.

XJ (or TJ - ZJ) springs are WAY too soft. WAY WAY WAY.

That's not true... TJ springs maybe, certainly not ZJ (and some XJ).

I run Skyjacker's XJ coils on my BII and at 240lbs-in they are dead-perfect. They should work just as well on a 2-dr Ex, although I could see them being a tad soft but still manageable on a 4-dr if you dual-shock it. Maximum lift should be kept at 4" however, because above that you lose any bolt-on options for properly sorting out your steering linkage geometry. This shouldn't be an issue though if you're planning on keeping it low.

Early Bronco coils (and some aftermarket F-150 coils) would probably be worth looking into for a flexible 4-dr Ex, they are a little stiffer than the XJ coils I run, but not so stiff they'd be almost like TTB coils (many EB coils are around 300lbs-in).