Soa or 4dr leaf swap?

[MicroMachine]

Here's my dilemma. I have an 03 sport 2wd on 35" mudders. The rear end does not have that much clearance for these tires. The rear drivers side tire keeps slamming into the fender when I'm hitting the whoops, even at low speed. The rear passenger tire hardly ever hits the fender. So heres my question, what would work better and be the cheapest, doing an soa or just throwing in some leaves from a 4dr X...? The front of my truck is allready lifted about 8" and the rear is allready sitting on about a 4" to 6" lift with custom shackles and my leaf springs with no contour. I'm no mechanic and I've got no welding experience so how difficult would these 2 be?

Any input would help greatly.

 

[steventadams]

Well you already have a leafpack that is comparable to that of a 4 door explorer so that wont help you. SOA requires some welding too...

 

[Dannyboy]

How about an add-a-leaf. That should boost you about 2", stiffen up the ride too.

You
1) live in So Cal
2) have a 2wd

so I can imagine that you'll want to go fast. Your truck will work best if kept spring under axle. When you go SOA you will have a chance of wrapping your axle and it is more leverage on your springs.

I'd try that first, cheap, and will give you a little lift and a little bit of results. Then you can save up for the big dog set of deaver or national springs

 

[MicroMachine]

You pinned my next question dannyboy, whether having soa would be a bad choice for my application. My truck is a go fast and all I wanna be able to do is hit the whoops at 40mph and when the moneys right than me and deaver will be having a talk.

 

[carlover]

You pinned my next question dannyboy, whether having soa would be a bad choice for my application. My truck is a go fast and all I wanna be able to do is hit the whoops at 40mph and when the moneys right than me and deaver will be having a talk.

The deaver G50 race pack for the ranger will fit our explorers with a modified shackle. Its runs 450-525$.

 

[Dannyboy]

and before you get going too fast, you'll probably want to talk to carlover about going fast with a 2wd. I'm not sure how either of your trucks were built before, but Sean had to make a few improvements after last truckhaven run I was at with him.

 

[carlover]

and before you get going too fast, you'll probably want to talk to carlover about going fast with a 2wd. I'm not sure how either of your trucks were built before, but Sean had to make a few improvements after last truckhaven run I was at with him.

Yeah haha, that was an interesting series of events. The front is now alot stronger than before with the custom uppers, a 2.5" shock and straps are next.

 

[carlover]

Here's my dilemma. I have an 03 sport 2wd on 35" mudders. The rear end does not have that much clearance for these tires. The rear drivers side tire keeps slamming into the fender when I'm hitting the whoops, even at low speed. The rear passenger tire hardly ever hits the fender. So heres my question, what would work better and be the cheapest, doing an soa or just throwing in some leaves from a 4dr X...? The front of my truck is allready lifted about 8" and the rear is allready sitting on about a 4" to 6" lift with custom shackles and my leaf springs with no contour. I'm no mechanic and I've got no welding experience so how difficult would these 2 be?

Any input would help greatly.

How if your front built??? Lift, shocks etc? And how is the rear lifted now??

 

[MicroMachine]

The front end has an aftermarket spindle, but im not sure who it's built by theres just numbers and letters on it. The uppers are still stock at the moment although I've been trying to find some nice ones to replace those, cause I know they're bound to break sometime. It's got a shock hoop with foxs 2.5 res with 12" travel. The rear end has 4 leafs and some custom shackles. The driver side leaves are fanning out and I don't know how to fix that. This month my project is to stiffen the back end and raise that a little more so I'm almost level with the front, most likely with aal until I get the money to go with deavers. For rear shocks I plan on going with rancho 9000s unless I can figure out a way to mount a shock bracket up there to throw in some foxs. After that the front end will be worked on. I wanna get uppers first and replace all the joints than when I've got some real dough replace the lowers. Carlover I was told you were going thru a lot of the changes right now and hopefully you'd be able to give me some insight as to what I should do and what has worked for you. Now some pics.

The shackle

Fanning out

No contour

 

[Maniak]

When you say your springs are fanning out, do you mean they are moving side to side so they aren't all one top of one another?

If so, an easy fix it so weld a u-bolt to the bottom spring so the arms go up/around the springs. That alone will keep your springs line up.

~Mark

 

[Dannyboy]

so you get about 8" from spindles and torsion twist in the front?

from the pics you posted, you'll be happy with the results of an add-a-leaf on the rear, your springs are pretty flat so they can handle a little bit of an arch.

 

[carlover]

The front end has an aftermarket spindle, but im not sure who it's built by theres just numbers and letters on it. The uppers are still stock at the moment although I've been trying to find some nice ones to replace those, cause I know they're bound to break sometime. It's got a shock hoop with foxs 2.5 res with 12" travel. The rear end has 4 leafs and some custom shackles. The driver side leaves are fanning out and I don't know how to fix that. This month my project is to stiffen the back end and raise that a little more so I'm almost level with the front, most likely with aal until I get the money to go with deavers. For rear shocks I plan on going with rancho 9000s unless I can figure out a way to mount a shock bracket up there to throw in some foxs. After that the front end will be worked on. I wanna get uppers first and replace all the joints than when I've got some real dough replace the lowers. Carlover I was told you were going thru a lot of the changes right now and hopefully you'd be able to give me some insight as to what I should do and what has worked for you. Now some pics.

The shackle

Fanning out

No contour

Yeah my explorer is going thru some changes. It really just depends how wild you wanna go and how much money you want to spend. The custom uppers will run you about 400$ installed and aligned. There really is no need to upgrade the lowers unless you are going with a full on long travel kit. Now ive never seen you rig, but im guessing if you have spindles and cranked the bars that much to get that big of a lift then it probably has little or no down travel which is very bad. If i were you id buy some fiberglass front fenders to fit those 35's and drop the front end back down a bit to get some of your downtravel and ride back. Ive done tons of research on things in the past few months. The fab guy i go to to do all my work has killer pricing and knows his stuff.

For the rear you do not want to stiffen it up if you want to do any serious off roading. I know this one from personal experience. At truckhaven the rear of my ex would kick out all over the place because i set it up just for the lift and not for the function.

Your really not that far from me, if you need any advice wanna look some things over pm me.

 

[MicroMachine]

Honestly I'm not sure how much the torsion bars are tweaked. I bought the car with the lift on it. I know a company called Hi-Tek Customs did the lift out of El Cajon, but what they did wasn't very high tech. There's a lot of clearance for those tires, in the front, so it can come down a bit. Is there any other way to fix the fanning out issue other than welding? I don't know anyone that welds nor am I able to weld. So I don't want to stiffen the rear, got it, but won't putting in aals stiffen it a little or will it just give me more lift in the rear? After buying this car and learning all about suspension I realized the company who did it just did a crappy pavement princess lift.

 

[Dannyboy]

I personally don't think that an add-a-leaf will make your ride bad. There's a big difference in "soft" from an leaf pack with 8 or 11 thin leaves and a stock pack that probably has some miles on it.

On my current ride (not the one you saw, but the one in my sig) I had a worn out 11 leaf pack on it. I just slapped a brand new 11 leaf pack on it and the truck definitely got stiffer, taller and handled much better, specifically in side-to-side sway.

For the $30 I would start there. As for the fanning out issue, you could pop into an exhaust shop with the parts and somebody would probably do what Maniak mentioned for a twenty spot. Or you could loosen up your u-bolts and smack them back into place with a hammer and then monitor if it happens again. It may take 10-20K miles to develop an issue.

If I were you I'd get that rear end up a little. I wish I took a spin in your truck to see what the ride was like then I would add a few more suggestions. I on the other hand, did plenty of things the wrong way and spent plenty of money doing it wrong.

 

[carlover]

My leaves fan out from time to time. I just loosen up the ubolts and hammer them back. The AAL will stiffen it up and depending on what shocks you have will be really really stiff. I have the AAL, shackles and some ****ty procomp es9000's in the rear and can hardly even push it down. Way to stiff, but if you use a softer shock im sure it will be fine. My rear setup will be changing very very soon to some deavers, an in cab shock hoop/cage setup and some 16" 2.5" shocks.

 

[MicroMachine]

Thanks dannyboy. Well if your going to truckhaven in april you can take a spin in it there, hopefully by then I'll have added some things to it. I should have my aals in by this weekend and maybe by than my uppers. Don't think I'll be able to do much with it at thaven but It'll be there.

 

[carlover]

You can get the AAL's at 4wheelparts for a good price.

 

[MicroMachine]

You can get the AAL's at 4wheelparts for a good price.

Thanks to Froader I'll be getting some for an even better price.

 

[carlover]

Nice. They are pretty easy to put on too.

 

[Dannyboy]

be cautious when buying parts from him. Make sure the serial number isn't scratched off.