Rear flex with Rusty's. Is this normal?

Hi folks,

I just had my lift setup finalized (after replacing the POS things that Rusty calls "shocks") and I took the XJ for some flexing pictures. Some of them are shown below:





Somehow, I do not like the rear flex. It looks as if the front is flexing OK, but the rear springs do not allow for much travel. Mind you there is no rear antisway bar, the front is disconnected, and there is nothing else to limit the rear travel.

What are your thoughts?

I'll try to get some more pictures today, forcing the front up a more steep cliff, to see if the additional weight at the rear will cause it to flex more.

Rgds

John,

My buddy has Rusty's 4.5" lift also, the only problem was that the rear springs were short! We added a 3/4" shackle and it solved the problem.
I guess since the springs were short, and the stock shackle was stretched into the spring instead of straight up and down like it was suppose to be, not letting the spring to stretch out and flex.
Is this the problem that you have??

Scott S.

Scott S. said:

John,

My buddy has Rusty's 4.5" lift also, the only problem was that the rear springs were short! We added a 3/4" shackle and it solved the problem.
I guess since the springs were short, and the stock shackle was stretched into the spring instead of straight up and down like it was suppose to be, not letting the spring to stretch out and flex.
Is this the problem that you have??

Scott S.

Click to expand...

Scott,

Indeed the rear springs were short. Indeed Rusty send me those .75" longer shackles (as if longer shackles compensate for short springs) which I installed. At the same time, I also removed the lower leaf from the springs and this, after some two months made the shackles being vertical now.

However, it looks as if the springs are also way to stiff, and haven't sag a bit after almost 9 months on the truck. I do not know if your friend's rear tires stuff inside his fenders, but no matter how much I tried (I tried also today, I'll post some more pictures later tonight), I didn't manage to make them go as far up as I would like.

I guess those who were telling me to go the Rubicon Express way, knew what they were talking about.

Thanks for your answer, I appreciate it.

Rgds

Are you guys' saying his springs are now too siff?

I always thought the in thing to do was to bitch about his sagging springs.

When did this change? I didn't get the memo.

Sorry for the sarcasm, I havn't had my coffee yet.

It seems to me the springs need to be broken in. How often have you been offroad with it? Did you remove the leaf because it gave you to much ride height? That would explain why the spring seemed to be to short. Once the springs are broken in the ride height will sag down to normal, the length of the springs will expand, and the spring rate will soften up to give you more flex.

Well..I don't know what is wrong with your but I have just installed Rusty 6.5" Long travel suspension which is the same rear springs and I have stuffed my rear tires and I love it...
Can't wait till Tellico to really get it broke in good....I rode Gardendale,AL last weekend and gave it a really good workout...

John, this may sound really stupid, but on my brothers XJ with RE leaf pack & 1" shackle he couldn't get the rear to flex either..... Now the RE leaf packs were in for a year & half, but when he added he shackle and went to flex it, it seemed like it didn't want to flex anymore.......... we torqued the shackle bolts to tight not letting the shackle & leaf spring move...... Now it stuffs his 33s pretty good.........

Scott S.

My Rusty's 4.5" leafs flex like they should. Very nicely.

Scott S. said:

John, this may sound really stupid, but on my brothers XJ with RE leaf pack & 1" shackle he couldn't get the rear to flex either..... Now the RE leaf packs were in for a year & half, but when he added he shackle and went to flex it, it seemed like it didn't want to flex anymore.......... we torqued the shackle bolts to tight not letting the shackle & leaf spring move...... Now it stuffs his 33s pretty good.........

Scott S.

Click to expand...

Good point there.

John, do recall if you happened to torque the susupension componets with weight on or off the wheels?

Who's Rusty?

Folks,

To answer some of the issues raised:

1. I do remember that the shop which removed my lower leaf and installed the shackles tightened everything up with the weight of the axle. In other words, the truck was on stands and they tighten everything up, then lowered it to the ground.

2. Why I removed the lower leaf? Because the damn springs were so stiff, that they made my kidneys bounce up to my throat every time I hit a speed bump at anything above 0 mph. I didn't care about the ride height that much, but when I had them installed, they left the shackles all the way forward, to the point that they touched the front part of their mounts! With the lower leaf removed and the longer shackles, here is what it looked the day of installation:



Yestarday, I checked and the shackles are almost vertical (that is with the lower leaf removed and the longer shackles installed).

3. How much they tightened the bits and pieces. I am not sure. The shop is a springs shop. It looked as if they knew what they were doing. The shackles do move back and forth, I checked that out today, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them, but I noticed them at one occasion being one forward of the vertical and one backwards.

4. Lift height. As it was with the lower leaf in the springs, it was 6" all around. With the lower leaf removed, but with the .75" extended shackles, it lost about .25" to .5" at the rear, which is fine with me, I like a level truck (not leaning forward too much). I know this is more than advertised (I have Rusty's 4.5" lift), but I also have the lighter 2.5 lt engine and indeed, I haven't have it off-road that much since the lift was installed.

Here are some more pictures I snapped today:





Notice how the rear tires do not go in the wheel well.

As I said, I didn't had the chance to take the truck off-road too much (what with all the problems I had with Rusty's parts), but it is a daily driver and it has been flexed a little.

I am not sure what to expect in the future, and being on a tight budget (with the twins around), I can't afford new springs at this moment, so I guess I have to live with these POS.

Do you think I should loosened all the bolts and retighten them with the weight on the axles?

Also, one more question. Check this picture below:



I noticed that the track bar has reached the end of its travel, touching the upper part of its mount.



Any ideas on how one can correct that allowing some more drop?

Scott and others, thanks for all your input.

Rgds

John,
Its just so strange that Rusty's springs are so stiff!! To tell you the truth, my partners XJ with Rusty's 4.5 kit rides like a Cadillac soft & plush. And he has only takin out just a few times within the past year since he has had the suspension in.... Hopefully everything works out for you. Good luck,

Scott S.
Member #631

Scott S. said:

John,
Its just so strange that Rusty's springs are so stiff!! To tell you the truth, my partners XJ with Rusty's 4.5 kit rides like a Cadillac soft & plush. And he has only takin out just a few times within the past year since he has had the suspension in.... Hopefully everything works out for you. Good luck,

Scott S.
Member #631

Click to expand...

Cadillac??? I wish. In any case Scott, thanks for the input, sincerely appreciated.

The only thing I can suggest is jacking up the body as high as you can (or feel comfortable with) take the tires off and drop the jack down to the ground spreading the leaves apart and grease up the wear pads liberally.

John,
I just realized that you were also asking about the front trac bar also.... I had this problem when I had the procomp trac bar, I just notched it where the trac bar was hitting at.

Scott Suyeto
Member #631

i assume you've already checked but i'll throw it out anyway........are the shocks bottoming out?

kraziexj said:

i assume you've already checked but i'll throw it out anyway........are the shocks bottoming out?

Click to expand...

Try flexing the rear without the lower shocks mounted, also you really need to break them in, load them down when your doing your normal driving. I think your victim of Rusty's bad experiments, I too have always heard that his springs were always on the soft side.

kraziexj said:

i assume you've already checked but i'll throw it out anyway........are the shocks bottoming out?

Click to expand...

I sincerely doubt it. They are brand new Old Man EMUs. I checked some older pictures, when it had Rusty's own shocks on, and the flex is the same (i.e. not adequate).

Tnx anyway.

XJCHUCK72 said:

Try flexing the rear without the lower shocks mounted, also you really need to break them in, load them down when your doing your normal driving. I think your victim of Rusty's bad experiments, I too have always heard that his springs were always on the soft side.

Click to expand...

Chuck,

I am carrying a tolbox I can hardly lift, and another box with recovery equipment of similar weight, on a daily basis. I do not know what else to put in there, to weight it down more.

Maybe some ammo cans full of .45 ACP.

Rgds

Your not the only one with rear flex problem, even those with Alcans and other brands seem to need a serious work in period. Maybe try taking out another leaf or turn the last one upside down to get them broke in, or just grin and bear it until you can get a different set of springs.