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Bastard pack question

Unclewolverine

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Kansas
I'm going to be switching my rear axle out next week, (hopefully, ) and the plan was to switch out the leaf spring pack too because mine are sagged out real bad and my parts jeep seemed to sit at factory height. Well, the bolts were so frozen on my 01 parts jeep that I ended up having to cut 3 of the mounts out with the torch. I don't have much hope that my 95 will be much better considering my working conditions. So im just going to leave the main spring for now and im going to go with 1 of 3 options; I just wanted to know what you guys thought.

1. Switch out the other 3 leaves and see where that leaves me, and make any further changes after i rebuild the 35 and put it back.

2. Add an extra leaf out of my old pack to hopefully make up any difference from leaving the top spring.

3. Same as #1 but put on air shocks to adjust ride height since I need to replace shocks anyway.

I'm leaning towards 1 or 3 because I'm afraid an extra leaf will make it ride high and rougher. I'm hesitant on air shocks because they are fairly pricey and im not sure how durable they will be out on the route.

Since I burned up the bushings in the donor leaves im just going to wait until I can afford to get new springs because the bushings are way more expensive than I thought they would be!
 
are you running any lift?

My experience is do it right do it once.. I was toying with replacing my busted lifted pack with a bastery pack... decided to bite the bullet and bought a new pack from IRO.

Seized bolts? Yep. Broken tac welds on nuts? YEP. Had to cut all of them out too. It can be done in a way that is fixable if you want to.


So I vote option 4. Replace the whole junk while you are in there or don't touch it. Down the line when you have to do it right you will regret not doing so the first go round
 
A tight budget and rust frozen leaf spring eye bolts are obvious reasons to install a bastard pack. If you don't like it, all you are out is a few hours of time.

My 3.25" bastard pack worked so well I saved it when I installed a store bought lift kit leaf spring, and then installed into another saggy XJ. 10 years and +100,000 miles of use and it still rides nice and works great.
 
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A tight budget and rust frozen leaf spring eye bolts are obvious reasons to install a bastard pack. If you don't like it, all you out is a few hours of time.

My 3.25" bastard pack worked so well I saved it when I installed a store bought lift kit leaf spring, and then installed into another saggy XJ. 10 years and +100,000 miles of use and it still rides nice and works great.

Exactly! I don't have an extra $300 dollars laying around to pop in a new set of springs not to mention God knows what else if the bolts are completely frozen. I do have my extra springs and another hour or two to change leaves while I'm changing the axle. TBH I don't really have the extra funds laying around for the air shocks, but if they will help me not hit the overloads 20 times a day I can make it work. Also I'm wanting to return to stock ride height from several inches below it while retaining as smooth as ride as possible. This is not a trail rig, just a mail jeep I have to drive over rough roads for 6 or so hours a day.
 
A full length add-a-leaf or a bastard pack leaf will boost a slightly saggy to moderately saggy leaf pack, and will increase the spring rate and load capacity slightly.

The on pavement ride quality is not going change from Limousine smooth to dump truck stiff with a full length AAL or a bastard pack leaf, but you may notice a slightly firmer ride feel.
 
I went with 2. I added the 2nd one from the bottom to the bottom of the bastard pack. I was just going to double up the bottoms but one of the old ones was broke. Even with that it didn't return it back to factory height but at least it sits level and not squatting!
 
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