Rear leafs

What are my options for replacing my rear leaf springs,noticed the other day they are lookin a little less bowed than usual.
This is a stock set up,on a 89' w/4x4 auto 4.0

churky89 said:

What are my options for replacing my rear leaf springs,noticed the other day they are lookin a little less bowed than usual.
This is a stock set up,on a 89' w/4x4 auto 4.0

Click to expand...

Not all will agree, but IMHO the best (and cheapest) approach in this situation is to grab an extra pair of XJ springs from a junk yard. Take them apart and set aside all but the main leaves. Cut the eyes off the ends of the main leaves, then put them into your leaf packs just below the main leaves, as add-a-leaves. This will gain you about 1-1/4" of lift from wherever you sit now, so if your XJ has settled, it'll bring it back essentially to stock height, maybe + 1/2" or 3/4".

You'll need new 5/16" center pins, which cost about $1.50 at spring shops or can be bought at NAPA. If you really want to go all-out, your could also replace the axle u-bolts. The stockers are 12mm, which American spring shops won't have, so use 1/2". DON'T buy the cheaply made (but overpriced) gold-color electro-plated 7/16" crap ones they sell at Pep Boys.)

I followed Eagle's advise to do this on my son's 86XJ 2.5L 4 banger and it worked perfect. I put the old front coils out of my 87XJ 4.0l in the front and the Eagle "do it yourself add a leaf" in the rear. The car sits level and measures 18 inches from center of the hub to bottom of the fender flare all around.

You can add a leaf (easiest), replace your spring pack (expensive), or have your springs re-arched (not available in all areas). There is a spring shop in my area (NH-ME area) that I've heard does that for fairly cheap, but you still have to pull the springs to do that, and if you've ever heard about those infamous bolts that hold them on...

oh... one more note. Often the cost of new spring packs is comparable if not cheaper than a lift kit. In that you should get either an add-a-leaf or a new spring pack. If you go the add-a-leaf route make sure you get the full length one and not the short version.

Ron Hyslop said:

I followed Eagle's advise to do this on my son's 86XJ 2.5L 4 banger and it worked perfect. I put the old front coils out of my 87XJ 4.0l in the front and the Eagle "do it yourself add a leaf" in the rear. The car sits level and measures 18 inches from center of the hub to bottom of the fender flare all around.

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Ron, thanks for the feedback. It's always nice to hear when something you recommend actually works. Out of curiosity, how do you find the ride with the extra main leaf? I think it rides well, but there are still people posting that AALs ride "harsh," and it's not clear if they mean this type of AAL or the short, half-length AALs (which do tend to be a bit choppy in the ride quality department).

I don't drive the car much, but after I put the leaves in, I drove it around some and I didn't notice any difference.

I forgot to include that I kind of spruced up the whole pack while I had them apart. I put new plastic pads between the leaves and added plastic pads to the additional leaves as well as putting a big wad of grease on the friction surface of each plastic pad during assembly.

Ron, where did you get the new plastic pads? I need to do that.
Jack

churky89 said:

What are my options for replacing my rear leaf springs,noticed the other day they are lookin a little less bowed than usual.
This is a stock set up,on a 89' w/4x4 auto 4.0

Click to expand...

Just lift it and be done with it.......you'll be happy you did


Mike

Got the plastic spring pads and new spring bolts at "Madison Spring" in Madison, WI. When trying to drill holes in the "do it yourself add a leaf" to install the spring pads, I burned up $100 worth of cobalt drill bits and never got one hole all the way through. I ended up taking the leaves in to the spring shop and they drilled the holes for $5.