LongLiveXJ

Hi all,

I needed to replace the leafs in my 96 XJ Country as they were inverted beyond usability. Ride quality was awful, the rear end skipped around corners, and weighted down the steering was scary...




So I did a lot of research (mainly here) and was convinced that an OME setup would give me the best ride quality while still being able to carry stuff back and forth to college. (Lots of highway and country road driving, minimal off-road)

Bottom line, I was looking for a 2-3 inch lift that rode well and had some strength.

So I ordered:

OME CS033RB leafs
OME 930 coils
OME 60053 and 60052 shocks
U-bolts, bushings, and TC drop just in case

A couple paychecks later it was all in my driveway and eventually it all made it on the jeep, but I was surprised at the height of the rear.

CS033RB leafs with the third leaf from the top removed:


And the 930 coils:


First of all, I can't imagine what it would look like if I'd left the leafs as they came to me... I measure about 3.5" of lift in the rear over what I assume to be stock, measured from the hub to the bottom of the fender flare (about 5 inches above where it sat in the first picture). The 930 coils netted about 1.75" of lift in the front (which measured stock height originally).

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of how it sits (and vibes), so the plan is to remove another leaf. Has anyone installed the CS033RB leafs / pulled them apart with any success? I'm trying to determine which leaf to pull so that the structural integrity of the pack is not compromised. I will post pictures of the leafs later.

TL;DR: I screwed up, and need to go lower (I know, lower)

Thanks!

Martlor13

Where did you get the parts? The ome I'm lookingoing at is from rocky road outfitters

LongLiveXJ

Various places, which was probably my biggest downfall. I waited for a deal to come up on a certain part and then snagged it.

From the research I've done, I can say with some certainty that on the Rocky Road website the 2" medium duty coils are the OME 930, the 3" HD coils are OME 934. I am assuming that the 3" medium duty leaf springs are the CS033RB and the 3" heavy duty leaf springs are the CS033RA, since those are the only explicitly XJ-compatible OME full packs that I could find still in production. (Please, correct me if I am wrong with any of this)

I probably would have gotten a more level lift if I would have gone with the 934 coils (heavy load). They are the same size as the ZJ stock coils IIRC. However, having the 930s now, I'm not sure I would want anything any stiffer... These are quite beefy. Plus, I was shooting for the lower side of the 2-3" range.

Also from the research I've done, the 'B' series on OME products are less stiff as opposed to the 'A' series. The leafs I got even had a '+' and a '-' on them (+ meaning slightly stiffer than spec, - slightly less stiff than spec). I put the + on the driver side and the - on the passenger side to try and even it out with a driver and a full size spare on that side of the vehicle. It looks good in that regard. The coils were also labeled 'A' and 'B' in the same manner.

Sorry for the long winded post.

LongLiveXJ

On another note, this stuff really does ride quite well. Even with the rear end up in the air, it sticks to the road and handles ten times better than the old stuff. I am a fan of the shocks as well, much better than the Skyjacker shocks on the other XJ.

To those that do not know, the CS033RB comes pre-installed with an add-a-leaf to make the pack a 6 leaf pack. To actually get the 3" out of it, you have to remove the third leaf in the pack from the top.



I did that (you can see the outline of where it was) and the pack still gave me about 3.5". I am thinking about removing the next one down... The only thing holding that plan back is the fact that there is a lot of room between the end of the next leaf down and the eyelet leaf. There is a rather beefy long support leaf, but I'm just not sure how strong that is supposed to be. I still want this thing to handle a load at highway speeds.

LongLiveXJ

Well guys removing the next one down looked great until it sank another 1/2 inch in a matter of one day... So back in went those two leafs and out came the second leaf down from the top (the one that spans the whole length). I'll post pictures soon, but the jeep looks pretty good and rides fantastic.

peligro113

With the cs033ra & cs033rb come with an extra leaf ARB recommends removing 3rd leaf from pack to reduce ride height by 1/2 - 1”. those 930 coils you have should only net you 1 3/4' of lift in the front, the cs033rb should net 3" so if you remove 3rd leaf you should be right at 2-2 1/2" of lift.

SeaVee

I put 3 50 LB pounds bags of sand in the back of mine for a few weeks after my OME lift and it corrected the rake a good bit

LongLiveXJ

The last pic on the original post was with the third leaf down from the top removed, it was still sitting at 3-3.5" of lift and was decently stiff. I had also read that 2-2.5" was possible with removing that leaf but in my case that didn't happen. I imagine everybody's mileage may vary, of course.

So in an attempt to smooth out the rake I removed the next leaf down as well and it looked like this:



Which is nearly where I had hoped it would be in the end. So I drove it around for a day but by the end of that day the rear had sagged a half an inch... proving that removing two leafs from this pack weakened it wayyy too much (duh).

I will take a pic of the current setup (with only the second leaf removed) tomorrow. I like it a lot... And yeah extra weight in the back helps a ton. I imagine it will speed up the settling process quite a bit.

Also, bring on the 2-3" OME lift pics! It would be cool to see some other results.

CR-Snow

Could put it back to the way it was on the first try, get 1" spacer for the front and let the read do a little sagging. But that's more parts and maybe Bit higher than you wanted. Still would be right at 3" all around. It looks really good in the pic before it sagged.

LongLiveXJ

I had also thought about that, however I don't see new tires coming anytime soon. I think it would probably look a little goofy with those 235s. Believe me, I would love to go just that much higher and then slap some 31s on it... But as a starving college student I think this will have to do for now!

Here is the long awaited picture of what it looks like now:


And posing on the lawn:


It levels out to pretty much exactly where it was with the two leafs removed once five people are in it. This is what I was aiming for, since I will need to carry anywhere from 4-600 lbs 500 miles back and forth to school for the next 2 or so years. I think it will be flat on the highway which would be stunning.

In its current state I highly recommend this setup. It rides great and has the capacity to carry quite a bit of stuff, which actually makes it ride even better. For once, I don't immediately notice a difference in handling when I fill up the tank with gas!

Keep in mind this is with the SECOND leaf from the top out. For those with these packs, it is the one that is the same length as the eyelet leaf, with the notched ends. It does not have the yellow slider pads. It also looks suspiciously similar to the D22XL add-a-leaf, which makes sense. A brand new 3 inch pack with an add-a-leaf could give you 4-5" all day long.

peligro113

That looks much better

LongLiveXJ

Agreed... Thanks!

Adamson904

This is what the cso33rb looks like with all leafs! About 4" of lift

LongLiveXJ

Wow that looks good... Thanks for sharing!

JK253

These overachieving OME leafs seem to be a thing lately; this is about the fourth time I've seen it brought up. Some people can't even get their shocks bolted up because there's too much excessive lift.

When I bought my 3" kit, they were still using the 5-leaf CS034RA's which came out fine between 3"~3.5". They didn't have that flat base leaf on the bottom, though.