Let's talk body lift.......

I would say that straigtening a bent leaf by your method is very unsafe.
A bent leaf has pretty much been weakened by whatever force it was exposed to; to straighten them and re-use them should only be in an emergency, such as getting out of a bad situation, or the need to return home.
To continue to re-use them is of course, entirely up to you.
And IMO, the military wrap is a great way to go, for safety sake.
That second leaf has got me home a time or two without trouble when the main broke.

 

I can honestly say that I've never seen a military wrapped suspension lift in my area.
Most of these Jeeps were not Burger King Speed Bump Jumpers either.
As an Engineering Technician, I had the priviledge of working alongside one of the top Metalurgists & many Engineers in the area. We did mangnaflux, radiography, tests to failure, etc. of anything from welder's certs., tests to failure of 40 or 60 Grade reinforcing bars and other steels by tensile loading , jobsite welds, to testing turbine blades for Long Island Light Company (LILCO). Joey & I established a good limit for safe flexure of spring steel, angles of shear, etc. and I had to satisfy myself by testing to failure. If my home/emergency repairs exceeded safe practices that we established, then it was time to replace a leaf. With my setup, I rarely did anything near what is done when merely re-arching springs. This was just one phase of my work.
I've quit riding hardtail bikes a cpl. yrs. ago. If my back ends up putting me in a wheelchair, or my one remaining kidney starts to fail, I'll consider an air suspension seat conversion. If it doesn't fit, I'll have to go with a nice soft suspension lift & mellow out my offroading.

gj

 

Obviously your setup works for you Gonzojohn and thats really all that is important. It sounds like you have quite a bit of materials experience.

Are body lifts bad? Maybe, maybe not.

I think a lot of it is how they are 'engineered', or the details make the difference. Most body lifts I have seen around here are poorly engineered and executed. Most people just wanted more lift for bigger tires and so bought a cheapo kit and had to make do with the rest of the details not thought of when raising the body, ie. raising the radiator, steering shaft issues, clutch linkage, shifter issues, brake lines etc.... I had a friend almost kill himself going up a very steep climb when his raised body nudged the tranny out of gear. Could have been clearanced, but its that thing no one thinks about when buying a $100 body lift kit. As such they have acquired a bad rep. and most people shun them.

But, if properly engineered they may not be so bad. Instead of using pucks that might act like dominoes when the body has a lateral load, why not fabricate new body mounts on the frame that are designed to handle those loads? Why not redo the brake lines, reengineer the steering shaft and figure out how to fix all the other issues? That would add to the cost making it more expensive than a spring lift so most choose not to.

If your setup works for you and is safe and reliable thats great! We are all different here and opinions may vary.(usaully by a lot!) For me I see no need for a body lift. I have engineered my suspension to give me the flex, travel, height and ride I desire while being reliable and driveable. Plus my cage ties to my frame so that would more difficult to do with a body lift.

Anywho, thats my opnion and I'm sticking to it!

Kevo

Ps. I think for my next rig I will be doing almost the opposite of a body lift. Keep the body where its at and raise the drivetrain. Flat skid under the t-case and cut the sides so the nerfs are much higher and angle them down to the frame. Oh, and on a CJ6! R)

 

If you have a military wrap and your ride wasn't stiffened, then either a softer spring rated leaf was used or less leaves were used above.
The last Ford pickup I saw had a progressive monoleaf rear setup. I don't think i'd want that for my type of offroading.


gj

 

Yes, I have 2 glitches with my body lift. I made the mistake of paying a mechanic to put it in. He used no rubber bushings on top of the lift block, so I need to put some thin bushings inplace.
Secondly, he DX'd the 6 or 8-sided composite Bronco blocks and replaced them with thin steel pipe for the 2 rear mounts (so that the larger blocks would not stick out - aesthetics). The extra blocks conveniently disappeared. I have to scab a 1/4" split over 1 pipe, and fab a piece of slotted angle to bridge the 2 mounts, then add rubber bushings.

Metals were not my forte, but I learned alot from Joey and probably more from playing with my buzz box and different steels & welding rods.

Good idea about raising the driveline. This may sound like a fish story, but long before the Hummer was introduced, I had the idea of raising the driveline by using a drive gear smaller than the tire & mounted inside each wheel - driven from the top by worm gears at the axle ends. Near horizontal prop shafts could be used. I haven't inspected a Hummer up close, but that was supposed to have been AMC/Jeep's design & contribution to the Hummer.
There is an offset enclosed drive system for the inside of each wheel. they appear to be less than 1' thick and the cost is well over a grand each. They offset from the axle end to the wheel centre, must be a series of intermediate gears.
Some day, the offset drive users will find faults in all our lifts, hanging driveshafts, and ancient machines.


gj

 

when i was building my jeep i decided to use a 2" body lift. the complete jeep was there for built around the lift so every thing fits and does not rub. the ONLY reason for the body lift was for cleaning purposes, makes it way eaiser to get on top of components. made working on it eaiser as well. i made mine from 2" round tefflon stock, cut to length and then a hole drilled thru it. where the block meets the body i used a very large 1/8" thick washer to distibute the load. to date this set up has worked well during some pretty hard wheelin.

 

How true. It makes cleaning much easier & also makes driveline component maintenance, access & inspection a bit easier.


gj