Softer ride on a lifted Jeep (without the help of narcotics)

I've asked a question pertaining to this sort of a question before and all of you folks have been of great help. So here goes another one...

I love my XJ and I've always driven it to Canada fishing because it's reliable and it's almost like one of my buddies. I'm also grown up enough to admit that there are vehicles available that offer a helluva lot more comfortable of a ride for such a trip. It hasn't bothered me as much as my aged dad whose back is getting worse as the years go by. Now, I've got a heated garage and I've had the suspension on my Jeep apart plenty of times so installing new shocks wouldn't be any sort of bother so what I'm wondering is if any of you know of a suspension/shock brand I can swap out for a real cush ride for a one week trip. Any advice besides giving my dad Vicodin at Minneapolis, Duluth, and International Falls will help. As always, I really appreciate the feedback!

Shocks are dampers, they don't make the ride softer.
They slow down the compression and rebound.
The spring rate is what controlss the stiffness or harshness of a ride.
Soft coils are rubicon express and rock krawler.
Cheap lifts like Superlift and Rough County use horribly stiff coils that suck.
Most lift leaf packs are all stiff.

Bad control arm angles will make your ride worse too.

Best bet to keep a good ride is to keep the stock coils, buy the adjustable Acos spacers and use them for roughly 3" of lift up front. Use 2" steel blocks out back and longer shackles. Buy 3 longer shocks.
Net about 3" of lift using stock springs all around.

Run 31 inch tires and you're ride wil be decent still.

Old Man Emu springs and shocks. Go for the medium duty coils and leaf springs with their 'comfort' shocks. Fit stock rubber bushings to the leaf springs and make sure all your other bushings are good too (LCAs especially)

It should give you 2.5" lift and a really nice ride. Although being soft springs they may sag to about 2" after 6 months or so. Spacers and shackles could be added too.

I have OME ZJ front coils and medium duty rear leaves with an OME add-a-leaf to stiffen everything up. I also run standard OME shocks and combined with spacers and shackles run at about 3.5-4" lift on 31" BFG MTs. Even this stiffer setup that is higher gives a really nice ride.

Hey you're not even a couple hours south of me, swing by the shop sometime if you're in the area.

I'm assuming you're at stock height now and from the sounds of your rust repair, your XJ has been around for awhile seen it's fair share of Iowa's salty roads in winter. Chances are high that your bushings in the control arms,leaf springs and shackles are frozen up to the bolts with rust. I know when I lifted my XJ I thought what a huge improvement in the ride but then considered the fact that nearly every bushing wasn't doing it's job in the first place.

If you want to remain at stock height then I'd suggest removing each bolt in all the bushings one by one to see if they are seized. If the bushings are not in need of replacement then simply apply some anti-seize and reinstall. BUT-as much as I like to follow torque specs this is one area where I never do. I install the bolts with some threadlocker and get them tight enough without binding up. Especially the rear shackle, make sure it can move freely under the weight of the vehicle because if you torque it to spec- it won't. Any bushings you replace do so with factory rubber as poly will give you a stiffer ride.

Another thing you could do is take the leaf packs apart and clean them up really good. Install some teflon sliders at the ends of each leaf. I can't remember if the stockers have them already, I'm thinking they don't. Means you might have to drill a hole in each end of the leaf, fun stuff. I have a drill press with a flood coolant system that works great for drilling in harder materials- you're more than welcome to come up and use it. Otherwise coat all the leafs in Sliplate, several coats and reassemble. Although you'll more than likely have to do that once a year- I'd install the teflon sliders.

If you need a hand with anything just give me a shout- not saying this as a sales pitch because this would be a personal favor- no money involved.

Long arms make the ride much smoother. Couple that with the right shocks and my XJ rides smoother than my wifes Pacifica. Larger tires and dropping the pressure a few pounds also helps.

barillms said:

Shocks are dampers, they don't make the ride softer. {snip}
.

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I disagree, but not totally. Shocks are dampers but, CAN effect the ride on a vehicle.
Ever driven a vehicle with bad shocks? It bounces around and is usually 'softer' feeling. Add new shocks and the ride 'stiffens' up.
The dampening effect of the shocks makes the suspension feel stiffer due to the controlled spring travel and the rate the spring is able to compress or rebound.
Hit a bump with a heavily valved shock and the spring can't react as quickly resulting in a harsher reaction. Hit the same bump with a lightly valved shock and it is able to react quicker and absorb the sudden movement.

old_man said:

Larger tires and dropping the pressure a few pounds also helps.

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Good point. Dropping the tire pressure is the quickest and easiest way to smooth out the ride.

fordtech said:

I disagree, but not totally. Shocks are dampers but, CAN effect the ride on a vehicle.
Ever driven a vehicle with bad shocks? It bounces around and is usually 'softer' feeling. Add new shocks and the ride 'stiffens' up.
The dampening effect of the shocks makes the suspension feel stiffer due to the controlled spring travel and the rate the spring is able to compress or rebound.
Hit a bump with a heavily valved shock and the spring can't react as quickly resulting in a harsher reaction. Hit the same bump with a lightly valved shock and it is able to react quicker and absorb the sudden movement.

Click to expand...

X2, you can have the softest springs in the world, but if your shocks are valved for a 1 ton, it will still ride rough. Maybe not as bad as 1 ton springs and soft shocks.... but you get the point.

The balance of the two, as well as control arm angles, all have an effect on the ride.

Just run your tires at 18lbs and call it a day.