Taking lift down (don't shoot me!) Need pro advise on max ri

Jeepcritter · #1 (**permalink**) 07-20-2003, 07:00 PM

Just bought: 94 YJ with 4" lifted springs with wedge corrections for the angle, 32" tires, 8" long shackles, 3" body lift, transfer case is dropped, and I'm sure radiator and other necessary stuff has been dropped since everything looks to be in the right place and it drives okay. I love the way it looks, but this is going to be my daily driver and I will be doing very little off road (okay, well, probably often taking it on dirt/mudd roads with hills - nothing serious). To everyone's disappointment I am taking some of the lift off...not all of it, but I've got to bring her down to earth a little more (although I DO love the attention I get driving her around!).

The first thing my husband did for me was to remove the long shackels, thinking we could help the handling some. Fronts came off first along with wedges. This was great, felt much smoother and no more walking all over the road. I was actually quite please with the improvement. We figured removing the rear shackles would clean it up more, so that was next. Husband left the wedges in the rear (for technical reasons he explained to me which I didn't quite catch). So now I have stock shackles, front and back, with the wedges still in the strings on the back.

NOW, the handling/steering is fine, but the ride is horrible...'not safe without a sports bra' type rough ride! It's the worst it's driven so far.

My goal, after the improvement I felt with the front shackles coming off, was to swap out the rear shackles, leave the spring lift and 32" tires, and probably just take the body down to 1 1/2". This would leave me with, overall, what about 6" total lift over stock??

Big quetions are:

1-do I need shorter shocks with the stock shackels? Through the grapevine, the answer has been 'yes I think so' if I removed the taller shackels, but can't get clear answer.

2-Did we screw up with leaving the wedges in the rear springs when we put stock shackels back on?

3-Could we have left the lifted rear shackles - why did I have such an decrease in ride with swapping the rear ones after such improvements with the front swap?

4-Am I going to have to move anything when I bring the body down?? The radiator or steering or anything?

5-Are the lifted springs going to prevent me from ever achieving a decent daily driver ride? Can we grease 'em up to soften the ride? I really like the clearance they offer - and with the 32" tires, it should look great even without the body lift.

Please Help?

My husband is very mechanically inclined and will understand the most technical answers, but he's never done *this* before and most people seem to be able to answer the stock questions about how to raise one up, but since we're dealing with so many factors and possibly changing so many already-installed lift features, we don't want to screw anything up or have to RE-DO anything. Neither of us can tell what changes in driving are due to which suspension changes, so rather than change one thing only to put it back in our blind approach, I'm hoping someone can save me a world of trouble (and him! He's been great wrenching on my Jeep all week since we bought it!)

Thanks a TON for any help you can offer!

Critter

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TerryMason · #2 (**permalink**) 07-20-2003, 07:00 PM

Were your shackles a total of 8" long? It looks like the ones in this picture are about 7" long

So that would make your old shackles give your Jeep about 2" of lift. I'm not sure if that would cause you to need new shocks or not, but if your shocks are becoming fully compressed, or your are hitting the bumpstops that would give you a rough ride.

One of you jump on the bumper, while the other crawls under the jeep and looks for any place where the suspension would be hitting. I'd think that it will either be your shocks or your bump stops.[addsig]