MJ springs under an XJ

I searched this and found some info. From what I can get so far it looks like the leafs will give me around 4 inches and maybe a half inch from the longer shackle. Is moving them under the frame like the mj a good idea? If so how much would that gain? I know I'm gonna have to chop the fenders for wheelbase, would I be better off using the leafs as normal or flipping them backwards? Also could I use a comanche driveshaft to make up for lenghtening wheelbase and lift till a sye could be bought? Any help ya can give me would be appreciated. Any better ideas please speak up.

Thanks

if you bolted them to the stock front spring hangar, it would bump your wheelbase back a couple inches, then you would need a shackle way out the back, probably hanging from your rear bumper, and it would probably give you around 4 inches of lift.

if you move it under the rail, you will get a lot more than 4 inches. you will also gain flex and lose sidehill stability. some will say it's good, some will say it's bad, it also depends on your wheelin. out west, the loss of clearance by putting them under the frame is a major detriment.

another option would be to use a bunch of the leaves with your stock main leaf, you could get arount 4 or 5 inches doing this along with the half inch lift from the MJ shackle.

we're just lookin for around 6 inches total lift, and ofcourse as cheap as possible. Would it be a major difference in side stability ya think or just a tad worse than an MJ. If we can move the hangers to under the frame and get the lift we want with stock MJ springs that may be our choice. Gonna make some long arms for the front and buy new coils, unless I can find something to swap them out of and get something close to 6 inches.

the stability would be less than an MJ, MJ springs are about 1 inch narrower than XJs, with yours under the frame it would be about 6 inches narrower. it really depends on if there are a lot of sidehills where you wheel... you could always leave the rear swaybar connected. I would think that you could get anywhere from 6 to 8 inches with MJs under the frame, depending on how tight to the frame you put your spring hangar and the length of shackle

for the front, you could get a HP D44 from an F150, run the radius arms, flip the coil perches. this would get you maybe 2 inches. then build or buy some spacers for the top for another inch or two. then buy used 3" springs from someone going bigger.

crazy_cooter56 said:

Also could I use a comanche driveshaft to make up for lenghtening wheelbase and lift till a sye could be bought?

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My rear drive shaft - 4.0L/AW4/231 longbed MJ - is right around 48" long. I'd guess that it's about 18-19" too long for an XJ, going by the wheelbase, and an swb driveshaft would be about 11-12" too long.