Front leaf swap

[tonysinnette]

Here are some quick pics of the progress. Its been going real slow due to watching my son who has been off of school, and not being able to get to the store for supplies due to weather.
Front cross member is done. Its welded to the frame, bumper and bolted to what is left of the old cross member. I have the shackle hangers welded up and will weld them on when I get the rear leaf hangers on.

The notch where the rear leaf hanger will go. This week I ran out of cut off wheels, which I got today. After about 10 minutes of cutting my angle grinder stops. The brush on one side is done. Maybe if I can get more than 10 minutes at a time cutting I can get it notched the rest of the way.

After I have the frame notched I need to cap it with some 3/16 steel, then weld on the spring hangers. The axle is stripped and waiting for the leafs to be installed on the jeep so I can see where the perches need to go. Then shock mounts....

 

[DeftwillP]

Looking good.

After you leaf the front, you should link and coil the back. Just to be weird.

 

[tonysinnette]

If I do link again that will be the plan. I'm a big fan of leafs though. Simple and durable.

 

[tonysinnette]

Too much shackle angle. I'm going to move the rear mount back about 2 inches to help it out

Just kind of tacked these in to check my angles. Gonna build new ones this week.

Passenger side all mocked up.

 

[Exxon Valdez Jeep]

What leafs are yo using?

 

[tonysinnette]

4 in Yj springs

 

[DeftwillP]

Is the front shackle angle supposed to be the same or different of the rear? It looks about like 45 degrees in that pic.

 

[tonysinnette]

Its a little more that 45, and when the spring compresses, the axle shifts forward about 2 inches from where I wanted it. I figure moving the rear mount back an inch and a half or 2 inches should get both right where I want.

As a note, that is not the actual pinion angle. That perch is not welded on, I just set it on there to get the leaf to center on the axle

 

[tonysinnette]

New Leaf mounts. Much better

Passenger side done except for the shock mount. I'll do those after the jeep is sitting on its own. I am going to set the up-travel to maybe 4 inches.

Monday night I was laying under the jeep finishing up the inside of the frame cap and set myself on fire. This is a treated welding shirt. It also burnt the nylon shirt I had underneath. If I was not wearing a cotton tee shirt I would have burnt myself pretty good. I now have a full leather welding jacket to keep me from getting singed. This is about a 6 inch hole in the chest of the shirt

 

[DeftwillP]

Looks like you may have gotten.....

a little heartburn.

 

[tonysinnette]

Looks like you may have gotten.....

a little heartburn.

Nice.... lol

 

[Art101]

interesting, in my build i'm trying to stay away from leafs, but i think i have settled on using them for the rear just so i can get this thing done already. chevy 56s with a shackle relocator kit

 

[tonysinnette]

I have an oddball front axle. Its a 44 from a 77 F150 camper edition( which had front leafs). It was set up for a YJ when I bought it, and with the HD diff cover, the truss, and the cast on perch have made the whole swap really tight. There was not enough room to get the steering geometry correct, and the spring buckets were off by about an inch, so the springs rubbed in some places. I picked up a set of YJ leafs for $100 and did my research so I can do this swap right the first time (hopefuly ) It will really simplify my setup.

 

[tonysinnette]

I got the drivers side frame cut and capped last night. I should be able to get the drivers side spring totally mounted tonight, and get everything painted. All I will have left after that is to burn in the spring perch on the passenger side of the axle and come up with some shock mounts.

 

[DeftwillP]

Are you going to go ahead and plate the "frame" around where you frenched the mounts?


Tapatalky

 

[tonysinnette]

Yea I'm probably going to plate from there up with 1/8th inch plate.

 

[tonysinnette]

Got everything wrapped up today. Just need to replace some hardware with some longer stuff and get some shims to set my caster. I ended up stretching the front end about 3 inches. Drove it around the block for the first time in a while with no issues. It seems very stable. I will take it up to the lake here this week for some testing to see how it flexes out. I will post up some pics tomorrow.

 

[tonysinnette]

I got some 2 degree shims in today. My caster is set at 5 degrees now. I need to trim a little sheet metal tomorrow were I rub at full turn, and I need to set up bump stops. I got one picture today before my camera battery died, but I can't get my photobucket to work today. I'm going to take it up to the lake tomorrow afternoon for a shake down run to see how everything flexes.

 

[Swamprat]

this seems so simple, i hear about leaves up front like its some serious fabrication and geometry work.

it looks good, and kinda makes me want to leaf swap the front

 

[tonysinnette]

There is a lot of fab work, but leafs are much more forgiving when it comes to angles. I did a whole lot of research for the last year before I actually started the swap, so I knew pretty much how I wanted to do it and what parts I would need to use. There is a guy over on Pirate that I took alot of info from.