building spring perches

What size of tube would be a good choice for 8.8 axle perches? I was thinking of making them 6-8" long for antiwrap and mabye making them slightly taller than stock perches for alittle lift right at the axle. Good idea or not?

Or should I just buy them somewhere that has a good deal on them.

I bought them from the steelership for less than $10 a pair

andyr354 said:

What size of tube would be a good choice for 8.8 axle perches? I was thinking of making them 6-8" long for antiwrap and mabye making them slightly taller than stock perches for alittle lift right at the axle. Good idea or not?

Or should I just buy them somewhere that has a good deal on them.

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I did something somewhat similar when I built up my Dana 44. I took a piece of 1/2" steel scrap and made it about 10" long and around 2.5" wide. Made some notches for the u-bolts and a hole for the centering pin. This plate sits on top of the stock 44 perch. I had done this as I saw how my springs had been wrapping around the stock perch and seemed to be flattened out by the stock perch's small surface area. After I put the axle back in the rearend did rise some in height, maybe a couple of inches, can't remember what exactly. The rear leaf springs had their arch back once again and there wasn't any noticeably adverse change in ride harshness. After a few offroad excursions things are still sitting the same way.

Along those lines M.O.R.E. sells new parches that are 8" long as well, although I don't remember what the cost was.

Get a piece of 2.5" x 2.5" x 3/16" wall tubing & cut some up. After you radius them for the tubing you'll have about an 1" off the top of the tube to the mounting surface.

I made my 14B perches 6.5" long & 2" above the tube for a little lift. Even with 38s & 5.13 gears I haven't had any axle wrap. This is with good springs however.