pulled apart rear leaves(rusts 3.5" packs been on there for probably 12 years+?) already had thrown 2 stock leaves in there previously, now added a XJ main and cut the eyes off the rustys mains. they are 8 leaf packs now.
went through 2 of these
new shackle angle sucks bad. I plan to move the shackle forward and down around 2"
leaves are all painted with a few coats of cheap spray paint and then greased em up real good.
also noticed i never greaesd the shackles and there was a lot of slop in the frame side shackle mount, so after hitting the zerk this time they were solid.
new center pins are good old ones were bent to shit. also the rustys leaves bushings were pretty fubar, so the new XJ mains have good bushings...
while I was throwin the shocks on I noticed I had about 7.25" of up travel and 3.25" of down travel left in the shocks. no bueno. So i grabbed the grinder real quick and cut em down and turned em around and burned em in real quick. Now I have 5.5 down travel and 5" of up travel. Thats alot better.
Also driver side rear upper shock bushing was in pieces. Slapped a new one in from my giant box of bushings ive collected over the years.
slapped a waggy pitman arm on too real quick. It is "fatter" than the XJ arm, and doesnt seem to go as far up the splines.
hoping now, after cutting down the front coils 1" and raising the rear 1/2" with an extra main leaf( and hopefully increasing the spring rate too, so it wont be as prone to dropping as much in the rear anyway) that I should be alot better off fully loaded for now on. trying to reverse the rake as cheap as possible.
still havent wired up the ARB.
next is addressing the front bump stop issues and putting a RS 5 on 5.5 plate for the rear tire carrier.