Superstiff leaf spring mods

I am sure there are few running the Superstiff leaf springs? I just put them on my CJ3a and can understand the limitations of such a short leaf spring. These are hard as rocks. The weight of the Jeep does not compress them at all.

Has anybody removed a leaf from the pack? I am thinking about after breaking these for a few miles I will remove the second from the bottom leaf. This one is about 3/4 total length. I am running 31" tires with the stock drivetrain so if I loose an inch of lift I am not to worried about it. I don't thinnk axle wrap would be an issue either. Any comments would be appreciated.

 

I might try removing two leaves and replacing them with two thinner stock leaves. It will be a while. I definitly want to give these a chance to break in first.

 

One other thing, make sure the shackle bolts aren't over tightened. It's an easy thing to do and won't allow the springs to move like they are supposed to. Nickmil

 

Try lowing the air pressure in the tires to about 20 psi . It help me

 

I am going to double check this. I just can't believe they could be this stiff. I am thinking that 2" reciever stock has more flex. I am hoping that the above is my problem.

 

Keep me posted on how you do, I have superlift springs on my willys with a spring-over and they are way stiff. I have also been considering some mods. to the spring pack.

Randy

 

WHEN I purchased my CJ, it had 9 leafs in the front ahd 12 in the rear. Rode like a tank. I wound up removing three in the front and four in the rear. Rode much better. Used this set up for allmost ten years with no problems. When I removed them . I started with the second shortest spring and pulled every other one.

 

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X2 on this to start with. I have run into it before on a couple of rigs we have worked on.

 

First let me say I am new to the forum (a great source of info) and this is my first post. I have 3 CJ 2A's in various stages, The best one of which my grandpa bought new in 47 and put a small block ford (260) in it in 65. It has never been out since then. I have done some updates to it in order to improve driveability and dependability, but do not really want to change it too much from the way he ran it. So I hope from time to time I can post some info that others will find helpfull.
I was looking for about an inch and a half of lift over what I had. I talked to various spring venders about the spring rates or stiffness of the springs they were selling. I might as well have been talking in Chinese, because no one knew the answer to that question. I was given a set of Rancho springs that I knew were pretty stiff. I removed my stock springs and checked the spring rates (oh yeah I also do the chassis setup on a latemodel stock car) front and rear were both about 170 lbs/inch. The Rancho's were 425 on the fronts and 350 on the rear. I ended using the Rancho main leaf only, which was slightly thicker metal. ground the bevel on it along the length of the spring edges to match the original style and hopefully reduce friction between the leaves. Then added some arch to rest of my original springs with a fairly large sliproll. cleaned everything up, put it back together and wound up with a spring rate of 210 lbs/inch.
It has been 2 years and they do not apear to have settled (yet)
Mike

 

Did sandblast, wirewheel or what to prep the original leaves.? Alot of mine were broken so I am hesitant to use any of them. How about using two spring clamps instead of four?. The originals only had 2 I believe.

 

My prep jobis the same as what I have used early ford car springs to make a hotrod ride better. consisted of first removing rust and grease, I used a wire wheel on a grinder, but I'm sure some sort of media blasting would work great if you have access to it. Then using about a 36 grit flex disc on small hand grinder I ground a slight radius on the ends on each leaf (would be the top side of the leaf as it is installed on the jeep) to prevent it from digging in to the next (longer) leaf in the pack. Then on bottom side of each leaf some or all of my leaves had wear marks where the end of the next (shorter) leaf in the pack had dug or worn into it slightly. I tried to polish that mark out the best I could with the flex disc, be careful not to get any part of the spring too hot with the grinder. I used an epoxy primer, then sprayed everything with aerosol griphite for lube and reassembled with all four clamps. I feel the clamps to more good than bad, But I have heard of some guys leaving some them off to allow the the spring to extend further and increase articulation. My shocks dont allow my springs to extend that far anyway.
Mike