Today marked as a red letter day. I really wanted my vehicle to stay as close to stock as possible, at least as far as appearance goes. Since I kept reading that the XJ could run the 31s IF the fenders were cut and I had done the cut and fold on both front and rear, I went with basically new stock, Dorman leaf springs from Amazon.

Took several days because the front leaf spring bolt twisted off inside the bushing and the lower rear shock bolt/stud broke as well(that was a pain).

Anyway, after getting some replacement grade 8 bolts today I started putting the drivers side back together. I'm working one side at a time see more visible,progress

Here is the new leaf springs, skyjacker shocks and day star bump stops in place waiting on a tire.




I put the stock tire back on to measure the lift(hopefully) difference. Here is a pic showing the difference between the bottom of the folded fender and the top of the tire. Left is before the updates and right is with the new components. As you can see, I had 5 inches clearance before and 8 inches afterwards! 3 inches lift by just replacing the worn out leafs. Cool, huh.




Finally I put the new 31 back on and measured and got 6 inches of clearance. With the new bump stop it shouldn't hit the top lip of the fender. I also measured the wheel clearances around the top half of the tire and nothing less than 6 inches of travel anywhere.




Now to get started on the rear passenger side, then on to the fronts. Gee whiz, this could be work if it wasn't so much fun.

Guess I should have recommended new grade 8 u-bolts too.

Thought about it, but the existing bolts were in fine condition, so decided just to use them.

Started on the passenger rear side yesterday, and dang if the lower shock bolt didn't break off almost immediately At least I knew what I had to do, and went ahead and ground the stud down. Today or tomorrow I'll start drilling through for the new bolt.

Would be interested to know the clearance after a month or so once the new leafs 'settle'.

Congrats and good progress.

From my experience with them, they might have settled an inch. After a big move with a trailer half way across the country. Those leafs are worth it.

Worked on through today(even though I have somewhat of a cold).

Finished up the rear passenger side. Almost exactly the same issues as the driver side but I knew what to do so it went much quicker.

I had removed the rear sway bar so wanted to compare the articulation from before.
The first pic shows the original position on the top and the updated rear suspension underneath.



It looks so good with those bigger tires on the back that I almost (not quite) would keep the stock tires in front.

We'll I got the front coils, Skyjacker shocks and bump stops on the front. So much smoother than the rear.

Perfectly happy with the suspension now, so,put the 31s on and tested it out in the pasture. Beautiful!

Im planning the same type of build for mine though not to be a "sleeper" have you made anymore progress