another sagging leaf spring thread

After sifting through pages and pages of old posts I think I'm worse off than when I started.

I'm trying to fix the sag on an 89 as cheaply as possible, I don't want any lift, just stock height. After seeing so many threads having a rough time getting leaf bolts out someone suggested just using an add-a-leaf to correct the sag.

Am I really better off doing this, or should I just buy some HD springs from quadratec and fight the bolts?

If all you want to do is fix sag cheaply, I recommend adding a leaf. Eagle and I have both done this with success, though we differ on the ideal setup. The basic idea is to find a set of old XJ leaf springs, and cut down a leaf. You can take a top leaf and cut the ends off, and put it just below your top leaf (Eagle's method), or you can take the # 2 leaf, and cut that so that it falls midway between your #2 and #3 leaves (my method). Either way will give you a nice restoration of height with no cost other than the leaves, new spring clips and center bolts (assuming you don't shear your U-bolts), and you need not undo any of the big bolts. My 95 has held its height nicely with an added leaf.

Remember that the springs are asymmetrical - that is, from the center, one end is longer than the other - so measure twice, etc...

ETA by the way, one other advantage of this is that there is no appreciable difference in ride and handling when add another stock XJ leaf this way.

Thanks! That's pretty much the goal, cheap and easy.

I've seen the write up to use (was it dakota?) springs to get some lift, but nothing on either of your methods, is there one?
There are so many leaf threads it's difficult to find what you need.

What about a rusty's 1.5" AAL for 29 bucks, that's cheapish and sounds pretty easy

Be careful using any kind of short AAL, it could invert your spring at the ends, get a long leaf from a s10 or jeep and go with that

Autozone has medium-length AALs for $30 a pair. I used these for a year, and they easily brought me back to stock height from an inverted spring. Very easy to install.

fizassist said:

Autozone has medium-length AALs for $30 a pair. I used these for a year, and they easily brought me back to stock height from an inverted spring. Very easy to install.

Click to expand...

They're $55 each on the website

I'll just order a set from rusty, for my needs I hope it'll be just fine.

by the way, do rustys come with anything or just the springs? Do I need to get a new clip?