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Doing Lift Need Help With Leaf Spring Bolt

The_Big_E said:
When I did my lift earlier this year, I was working with a 1995 XJ, roughly 180k miles, primarily driven between Montana and Alaska - TONS of nastyness underneath, and the rust on fasteners was horrible!

My biggest problems were with the Leaf Spring Bolts up front, not even my Ingersoll Rand 1/2 drive impact gun @ 640ft-lbs in reverse and 2 weeks worth of PB Blastering the thing would work. We also tried heating the weld-nut with propane... wouldn't budge.

I got mad, and bought a 3/4" impact gun making 1350ft-lbs in reverse, heated the heck outta the nut, and, it *BARELY* backed the bolt out. Just remember that when attacking a rusty nut/bolt, keep the threads oiled and stop every few turns and run it back in a turn or two to clear the build-up of rust out of the threads. Yeah, it takes a while, but you don't bust your nut/bolt by doing that.

Remember, the harder the bolt is to remove, the more foul language you are expected to use. Don't hold back, tell that bolt how you really feel. :rof:

Eric
Click to expand...

Just a hint, propane takes forever to get bolts/nuts hot. Mapp is better and mapp/oxy will heat things up fast.

I've done numerous lifts with mapp/oxy and it works wonders every time.
 
Just when I thought I was making some progress things get F@%#*d up again. I was able to get the passengers side leaf in with a lettle coaxing. While coaxing the drive axle pops out of the T-case. Then while trying to get the U-Bolts tighted I notice that the axle is really croked. Any one have any suggestion on how to get the axle straightened out and get the drive shaft back in?

Also with the OME leafs is one ment for the right and one for the left?
 
They should be interchangeable - just make sure you put the right end forward on each one. The bolt at the center of the pack should be right at the spring perch on the axle, if the axle is straight under the car and one or the other side won't line up right, you have them backwards.
 
kastein said:
They should be interchangeable - just make sure you put the right end forward on each one. The bolt at the center of the pack should be right at the spring perch on the axle, if the axle is straight under the car and one or the other side won't line up right, you have them backwards.
Click to expand...


I'm a moron LOL! I took it out and put it back in the other way and all it took was five minuets.

Thanks!!!
 
Khary23 said:
I got another question for you guys. How do you get the bushings into the new leaf springs? I tried to use a ball joint press, but it was not big enough.
Click to expand...

I used a hammer to tap in the bushings lightly so they'd just stay in place. I then used a large C clamp with a piece of steel on the side of the bushing opposite from the side going into the leaf eye, and then another piece of steel on the other side of the leaf eye to support the C clamp.

That got the bushing about 75% of the way in.

Then I drilled holes in the steel and use a 1/2" grade 8 bolt to pull the bushing in further.

Worked a bit more but I am still stuck with all of the bushings needing to go in about a half inch more! I think a ball joint press would help me get them the rest of the way in....so if you can get them in this far yourself the balljoint press (and proper adapter to fit the outer bushing sleeve properly) might do the trick for you. Good luck.

I am in the process of attempting to acquire a good BJ press so I can hopefully get this finished. So little more to get pressed in!
 
I made use of a large (6" I believe) bench vise. I put the spring upside down on an old rolling desk chair to make positioning it easy, then put the vise on the floor, opened it up far enough that I could get the bushing and the spring side by side in the jaws, and slowly pressed it in. When it went a little sideways at first I simply backed the vise off, moved to the portion that wasn't going in properly, and tried again. After it was about 1/4 in, it went nice and straight until the metal sheath and center tube struck the other jaw of the vise. At that point just move the vise jaws far enough down that the center tube (longer than the sheath) is not going to be contacted and continue until it stops again, then put the spring at an angle so that the sheath is contacted by one vise jaw but misses the other. Continue pressing until the bushing is centered.

I wish I had taken pictures of this process - I'm definitely going to take pictures of the rest of the project and do a full writeup on it. Should happen this weekend unless I have a previous commitment I forgot about.

EDIT: this all took me about 20 minutes tops. They go in really easy once you get them started. My vise cost me like $50 at Home Depot.
 
Last edited:
Blaine B. said:
I used a hammer to tap in the bushings lightly so they'd just stay in place. I then used a large C clamp with a piece of steel on the side of the bushing opposite from the side going into the leaf eye, and then another piece of steel on the other side of the leaf eye to support the C clamp.

That got the bushing about 75% of the way in.

Then I drilled holes in the steel and use a 1/2" grade 8 bolt to pull the bushing in further.

Worked a bit more but I am still stuck with all of the bushings needing to go in about a half inch more! I think a ball joint press would help me get them the rest of the way in....so if you can get them in this far yourself the balljoint press (and proper adapter to fit the outer bushing sleeve properly) might do the trick for you. Good luck.

I am in the process of attempting to acquire a good BJ press so I can hopefully get this finished. So little more to get pressed in!
Click to expand...

What I ended up doing was using a screw driver to slightly pry open the spring eye then a large wooden hammer to knock the bushings in.
 
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