we were chatting last night and he's a fan. obviously lol ive driven trucks with full leafs and my buddy has a samurai with front leafs and it drives like a cadillac.

 

What are you breaking? And ofcourse its going to ride crappy with a 6" short arm

And a radius arm suspension is incredibly simple

 

Good luck with it and if you do get around to it take some pics.

 

ill take tons of pics. im also doubling all of my box and bracket fab so if i ever get a nicer jeep shell i can build it the same way. it wouldnt be a total bolt on set up but im gonna try to fab it to shere you can replace or swap the parts somewhat easily. im sure ill be getting a stocker shell to replace my body.

 

few more

 

id like some more pics on how you boxed the front...

 

those were all from the summer. ill take some better ones after i wash the jeep.

 

right on. im gonna go buy some steel in a few weeks. 1/4 in plate should do it right? and im gonna make frame ties too with rectangle stock.

 

Looks good. Wierd cause I've never really seen front leafs but def looks good

 

Why the long bumpstops, looks like it wouldn't have hardly any up travel.

 

I come from from jy and cj jeep wheeling mainly so ive been around leaf springs. Ive seen leaf sprung cj's out do full on buggys. Just a little advice if you want to use it. Dont go with a high arched lift spring pack. Go soa with a relatively flat arch, gives max flex. And it will put the least strain on the uni body. Also run your spring plates flipped with the threads facing upwards. This allows for easy gliding over obstacles. And converting it should be next to nothing, im not sure why everyone thinks it will be so hard.

 

You have to plate the unitbody which means welding plate to sheet metal because you have to have something to mount to. Most people have a hard time welding in that type of situation without either not getting good penetration to the plate or burning through the sheet metal. I've done SAS on yotas and full size chevys and it's pretty easy because they have a frame and you just weld on some mounts and build a new shock mount. He will be starting from scratch literally building a frame to mount the leaves to. I'm not saying it won't work or even work well, just that a link suspension in this instance is easier and will work better. And can be done cheaper.

 

If you can't well this isn't a project you should be doing anyway. And if you can weld its not more than a weekend project. I do agree I would prefer a long arm setup on an xj
But to each his own. I have seen leaf springs work very very well on the trail as well.

 

because i didnt want to bend the $hit out of my springs and destroy my fenders.

the truck performs on the trail just as good as any other truck and can flex damn good.

i have a long arm 5.5 xj

id choose the full leaf at the end of the day.

 

the reason for converting to coils is cause north america is full of people who want 4x4s that ride like cars.....same reasons theres a thousand other bells and whistles, toyota for example went with IFS in 86 for north america yet the rest of the world continued to get a leaf sprung front end up until 94. Coil or leaf the cherokee is still a solid front axle so its never going to ride like a car but i didnt buy it for ride quality. that said i dont have a preference for front suspension as ive driven coil front ends and leaf sprung front ends both of which some flexed like crazy and others flexed like **** it all depends on the spring rate and such.