I'm wondering who has stretch their wheel base, what they did to do it, and the benefits of doing it. I have seen a few nice looking rigs with the rear axle stretched out. It looks cool and as short as the XJ is I figure it helps with off road ability but not sure if it is worth the cost. Look forward to hearing every ones input on this .

 

Flip the rear springs around, cut the fender wells out and add a traction bar.

The only cost being the traction bar.

Honestly, I think the XJ wheel base is about perfect like it is.

Flipping the springs around will gain you about 5"s of stretch.

 

Flipping springs is not good. The way the packs are designed the front acts as a control arm. I would run Comanches leaf's (3" strech) with shackle Relocation bracets. Or yj leaf's(4" stretch)

 

theres a write up on here on leaf springs and how they work, id try to find it if i had the time but do some searching. dont just flip your springs around

 

I've seen multiple people flip the spring and have no problems.

 

yj leaves will provide a shorter wheelbase if using the factory leaf mount. no stretch.

flipping leaves can work. but they will be weaker as the front of a spring is designed to be stronger as to transmit power to move the vehicle. yes you can do it. but if you are doing all the work to make a stretch work, why not run a halfway decent spring the correct way? its not like making a leaf hanger is difficult work.

 

Is there any real benefit to stretch it? Not complaining about the wheel base just looking at all the options

 

better departure angle(if you do it right) better hill climbing ability.

cons are worse turning radius and worse break over angle.

 

N00B warning..... Whats break over angle?

 

The relationship between your front and rear tires and your frame.


In other words a longer wb is more likely to get high centered(break over)


If you have large tires, and a pretty large lift. stretching the wb can help a lot. Without sacraficing to much break over.

 

I've been contemplating just drilling another center bolt hole an inch back to get more clearence to run 35's without needing to trim a lot. From what I can tell it wouldn't effect or hurt anything, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Kool I plan on 35-36s in the near future on maybe a RE 5.5" kit with long arms. Would doing the stretch help any with that?

 

You could stretch a little in the front the with re kit. But you can only go about an inch. If you want to stretch the rear then relocate the hanger box. Just makes it easier. Flipping springs is a bad idea imo just do it the right way.

 

When I get a shackle relocation kit I am going with FST Low Pro relocation bracket so I should be able to move it back some. Also considered redrilling a hole for the center pin. Then again I may not mess with it lol.

 

Don't do that, I had the same idea and apparently I will weaked the leaf spring to the point where it can crack and fail.