Rear Alxe Leaf Spring Flip

[John Beegle 2]

Has anyone done a rear axle leaf sping flip so that the leaf spring are over the alxe instead of under? It looks pretty stright forward. Weld some new leaf spring perches on top of the axle and bolt everything back together, but as we all know not everything is as simple as it looks. :unsure: Just woundering if anyone has done this and what problems they ran into.

 

[Mike Sove]

i have not done it MYSELF. but plenty of guys on the site have and it gives you roughly 5-6" so im told. and its that simple, weld new perches, or you can try and remove the old ones but i dont suggest it..im going to be doing it as soon as i come up with another 6"of lift up front lol.

 

[Mike Dziubina]

i almost did the SOA to my truck but then i learned i can't get the lift spindles. the SOA mod is just as you said, fab some new perches and bolt it back up, if your handy shouldn't be too bad, just make sure they are even and parallel! but you have to match the lift in the front cause you will get a good amount of lift from the SOA



oh...you will need to fab new shock mounts too.:banana:

 

[Mike Sove]

hey mike why couldnt you get the lift spindles?

 

[EddieS'04]

Search for brandon . he did an soa.picsin his library

 

[John Johnstone]

You will need to find a way to extend your brake line. The way I extended mine won't work for yours. Because I have an 01 where the brake line T connector is on top of the pumpkin and I believe 03+ models have the brake T connector on the driver's side of the axle.



The other problem I ran in to was that after doing some good offroad flexing that the load springs walked on me. The one on the drivers side started catching on the gas tank skid plate and eventually might have punctured it if I hadn't of fixed the problem. To fix the problem I did a home made clamp around the leaf pack.



Oh yeah, you need to figure out where to mount the shocks. Many people have new shock tabs mounted on the axle tubes. I ditched my anti-sway bars and mounted my shocks in the holes left behind.



I've been meaning to get some pictures uploaded of my SOA mods. I will try to get that done today and post them.

 

[John Beegle 2]

Cool I would like to see those pics..... about how much lift did you get in the rear after the conversion???

 

[John Johnstone]

How much lift? A lot! I never measured it.



Ok, here are the pictures...