Building a 1 ton Cheorkee on 44s. I'll start by saying that I live in Florida, there are NO rocks here, this as NOT a rock crawler. I use it for a street truck, mild trail rig, and mud bogger. The trails around here are pretty mellow Florida is pretty much flat. I don't want to hear any flaming about how big trucks are stupid or how they are too big to be useful. My style of wheeling is very different than most on this forum. This truck pretty much eats anything I have thrown at it so far.

I used to have a custom 4 link with coils that I built but I never liked how it rode. Too squishy for me. It flexed great, but I decided to ditch the 4 link setup for leaf springs. I chose leafs because of their simplicity and predictable ride. Personally I love how leaf springs ride. I don't need crazy amounts of flex for my needs either.

Here's some pics of my old setup. It drove excellent on the street, just really hated the squishy ride.







Here's the specs
44 Ground hawgs

14 Bolt rear, 5.13's, yukon grizzly locker. 8" chevy leafs, custom hangers& 6 inch shackles.

Dana 60 front, 5.13's, Open diff for now, 8" chevy leafs, custom hangers & 6 inch shackles

Rusty's drop pitman arm, custom high steer knuckle, 3/4 heim steering & track bar. AGR Rock ram hydro assist.
Also taking a few leafs out of the rear it rides a bit too stiff, that will also kick my shackles back where they should be.
Started like this:


Got the Dana 60 all stripped, grinded the welds off the C's and turned it about 18 degrees for better Pinion angle. Planning on running 7 degrees negative castor to keep the big tires form wanting to wander so much.


Built custom spring hanger in the front






And yes, That giant hand cut hole in my bumper is temporary, I'm building a whole custom winch bumper .

Shackle Hanger with 1/4in plate mount that wraps around unibody. I think it's plenty beef.



That's all the progress I have as of now

 

Pics aren't working buddy

 

im much happier to see that thing no longer on 53's with a dana 30!


and btw, there are rocks in FL...just a couple hours south of you

 

yeah it's asking for member login information

 

Yeah this thing was a POS when I got it haha. And I'm just not much of a rock fan man. I'm buildin this jeep for mud mostly. If i wanna rock crawl I go up to gerogia and wheel my grandpa's YJ on 33's haha!

 

pics fixed?

 

Badass man

 

yeah crawling is for babies anyway right hahahahahaha

 

Hows this coming along ?

 

That's pretty cool man!

 

I'm liking it. Want to see more

 

Same route im going! Got leafs all around on mine and 38s! Im followin this thread...hope to see more soon!

 

Don't mind the haters brother.... do your thing! Rig looks awesome, I am sure most guys just appreciate seeing another XJ done up another way... If we didn't, we'd all be driving them stock!

 

umm, what haters?

i see no negative comments in this thread.