As some know, I have been a member of OSJ for a while and wheeled a red TJ for a while. Since then a lot has gone on but I’m finally ready to build a jeep to exclusively wheel. A few years ago a buddy of mine offered me his YJ due to a crazy amount of rust going on in the frame. I owned it for a few year but just recently moved to a new house with a single car detached garage. After a lot of house work I am finally able to work on the YJ.
I was able to strip as much as I could before rolling it into the garage for the first part of the build, the front end.
My plan is to go spring over axle with waggy leafs in the front and 4 linking the rear. I’m working on the front now and want to move the spring mounting points up and forward to try and lower the spring over height but I’m guessing as far as locating the shackle and fixed points. That said,
For the guys with leafs in front. How much higher/lower are the spring eye mounting points from being flat (0 degrees)? Secondly, how does it do in a climb (big or small)?
From what I have read, flat or the fixed eye end being an inch lower than the shackle was the best. so I’m trying to decide now before fitting everything up.
Also, I know the waggy springs are off set. Does it matter which way I run them? If I ush the mounts forward 2-4 inches, could I flip the springs around to gain the best amount of stretch. From what I read, 2" front stretch is the max before having to move the power steering around.
I’m excited to finally man up and try to get this going. I admittedly have no real fab skills but I’m not afraid to give it a shot. I’ll definitely be talk to you about the rear link set up once I get the front settled.
I’m thinking with that set up, the lift is going to be awful high if you run a standard shackle. You may want to consider a slider shackle set up for the front, which will keep your sprung height a little lower.
The spring here would be at full droop with a 7 inch shackle frenched into the frame. The top of the level would be the path at full compression. I’m a bit worried about how tall it will be. Looking at it, I think it will be the height of a typical waggy spring over. A bit taller than I wanted.
7 inch shackle is pretty freaking long. If you went with the slider set up, this would essentially move your spring up 3 inches or so from where it is now, which wouldn’t have you riding quite so tall
I bought a shackle reversal cross member from WFO Concepts. Mocked it in also pushed the steering box forward an inch with a relocation bracket. I have to drill the frame for the shackle now. Time to finally put the WJ brake conversion together as well.
No turning back now. I burned in the shackle reversal bracket the other night and resecured my steering box because the lower bolts sheared off when I was removing the old bracket. The tough part being that the nuts had welded on tabs that I remade and snakes in through the frame.
Today I welded the JKS spacer onto the WJ knuckles for the over the knuckle swap. I preheated the knuckles in an old toaster over before welding on the spacer. Here’s to hoping process over comes a bit of my lack of experience and my welds hold up… You don’t know till you try.
Ya, Krissie didn’t want it on the counter at the new house. I figured it would make a decent pre heat oven, it’s one of the turkey cooker size. I think it worked but of course I ran out of wire before getting to the second one.
It Ain’t perfect but it is mine. Both wheel hub spacers are on. Some welds look better than others but I’m hoping the pre heat helped. In hind site maybe I should have ground down the spacer to fit a bit better because there were a couple deep voids to weld. I should have taken a before weld photo.
