Old Man Emu Leaf spring for 1st gen ex's

[Peter Westling]

Hi everyboy.

Does anybody know if the Old Man Emu leaf springs OME36 fits into the 1st gens?

And if it does, combined with warrior shackles would it give me 2" + 2" = 4" lift in the rear?

Last Q is, by replacing the leaf springs, would the infamous "saggy rear" be cured?

I will combine it with new rear nitro shocks from roughcountry...


Regards

 

[IZwack]

i dunno if the OME36s will fit a 1st gen but.. wow umm putting in OME leaf springs plus shackles will more than fix the 'saggy rear' end.. ur rear end will be about a mile higher than the front.. i mean even just shackles by themselves makes Explorers looks kinda nosed down when the front suspension is left untouched.

i think i should mention this cauz there's another solution to getting that much lift in the rear end - spring under axle. the problem is is that it requires a welder and a grinder so this might get costly compared to just buying bolt up parts (the springs and the shackles).

anyways, good luck, lets go snowboarding in sweden sometime hmmkay?

 

[Maniak]

We have a set of OME-36 on our '92 xlt. I got them from Rick (I don't remember how long he had them installed).

Make sure you get the bushings with them.. When I got them, a bushing fell out at ricks house. I spend a few days trying to track down a set of stock 2nd gen bushings.. was almost impossible (might be much easier now). Luckily, Rick found it and shipped it to me.

I have well over 130k miles on them.. and it is time to replace them.. The arch is now gone (they are flat).. and I run them with a set of War-153 shackles. The springs and shackles gave me about a 4" lift.. I'm down to 3" or so in the rear now.

They OME springs worked great for wheeling.. I got lots of suspension travel, and they felt much better than stock. They aren't the best for towing and they are soft..

Here is 2 pics of how much flex they gave me.. (this pic is about 50k miles ago).

I'm looking at doing a SOA conversion now.. If I didn't do that, I would go with a new set of OME springs.. I really like them.

 

[Peter Westling]

IZWack: Since my front coils has sacked so much that aligment, camber cannot be done properly I will replace the front coils and suspension. I will go for the roughtcountry 1,5" leveling kit and see what happens. Then I will get about 2,5" since the 1" I already lost with worn out coils...
I might just test with homemade shackles first, if I find the rear end saggy even if the rear shocks has been replaced then I'll just replace with the OME springs and put back the stock shackles. I want the same height in front and rear.
If you get to Sweden, we will snowboard!

Maniak: Thanks for the pics and the tips about bushings.

I'll get back and post the before and after to the "show of your lifted" thread when the job is done. I will also add a 3" BL that I included in the order from roughcountry.