I am on my second Cj5 and this one is gonna be a whole lot less road and a lot more hill and hole. I was watching Extreme 4X4 and they did a SOA on their cheap jeep. He said it only cost about $50, I can see this with only buying perches but what else is needed? Is it worth doing? Finally, should a shackle reversal be done, if so will revolver shackles work on the cab side?

Thanks, you guys are great!!!

I am on my second Cj5 and this one is gonna be a whole lot less road and a lot more hill and hole. I was watching Extreme 4X4 and they did a SOA on their cheap jeep. He said it only cost about $50, I can see this with only buying perches but what else is needed? Is it worth doing? Finally, should a shackle reversal be done, if so will revolver shackles work on the cab side?

Thanks, you guys are great!!!
give me a fawkin break
you can't even get drunk fer $50:flipoff2:

I agree with the above post....... but not exactly what I was lookin for. Anyone else?

You can get a lot more info from searching. Just a few things would be longer brake lines, some sort of anti-wrap, SYE, CV driveshaft, etc...I think 500-1k would be more accurate if you want it done right.

I am getting ready to do this on mine. If you go to the Jeep FAQ and go under Topic of the Month (TOTM) there is a lengthy thread on this. I believe it can be done for $250. HAving said that I have never done it before or read everything there is to know about it. A Pitman drop arm (not homemade) is pretty essential to an SOA conversion and costs over $50 by itself.

Also if you plan to run Revolvers on the front don't do a shackle reversal. when you put them on the back end of the front leaf they will put a god awful agle on your driveshaft when they open and grenade your ujoint!

Just wait til part II of that show when he installs that $800 hi-steer set-up to get rid of that bent drag-link :shaking: SOA done right is easily $1k.

soa is more complicated than it is led to believe, if you do the work your self, disasembly, cutting, welding, and reasembly, not including brake lines, drive shafts, pitman arm, and misc hardware, $50$ might be right, but there is alot to consider when doing this.:eek:

drive over to the Extreme 4x4 shop and give em' fifty bucks, that should cover the cost of them doing a spring over on your cj:D

That is way to cheap for a SOA. Their jeep is not going to be used on the road period, that is why they said they removed the license plate:rolleyes: . Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who sees that is going to do a hack job and put stuff on the road that shouldn't be there. They did their soa on a cj-7 yours is 10 inches shorter. You will need to address several things. Driveshafts (lengthening & cv), steering(pitman arm or high steer), brakelines, pinion angles, shocks(longer to make up for the added flex), and many others. They did add alot of other things to the jeep at a later date, I believe. If you are worried about the soa costing money use a regular spring under lift.

That should show you that you can`t believe everything you hear on a F--king bullshit 4x4 show.:mad3: Even if that rig was only going offroad, $50 for a SOA job is utter nonsense.:shaking: You need to take the time and search here, to do it right it`s going to cost a hell of a lot more. I have $950 alone in my High Angle driveshafts from Jesse. The LEAST expensive item of my SOA has been the $60 I spent on the Dakota leaf springs. When I want to become knowledgable on a subject, I READ about it not watch a stupid TV show.:rolleyes:

soa is more complicated than it is led to believe, if you do the work your self, disasembly, cutting, welding, and reasembly, not including brake lines, drive shafts, pitman arm, and misc hardware, $50$ might be right, but there is alot to consider when doing this.:eek:

exactly ^^^

i did my entire SOA by myself with only the help of one guy with some welding. i would imagine i saved a TON of money by doing it all myself. here's a basic list of what i had to do:

perches/SS brakes/weld-on shock tabs $200 (RE stuff)

stock yj springs- free from 4x4 shop i bought this stuff from^^^^

AA SYE / TW CV Driveshaft $475 from 4x4groupbuy.com

DS3000 shocks $33 a pop 4WheelParts

Hard brake lines and small tubing bender (i ruined my hard lines while axles were out of the jeep)-$12

So, with say 100 thrown in for random other crap.
I'd say it was roughly $900 for a pretty good job.

the YJ has seen Tellico and many Highway miles and is doing great. i've ruined the rear springs from not running a sway bar and too short of bump stops.

well enough said. good luck with whatever you do man.

No safe SOA conversion is going to be done with $50 period. I went fullwidth SOA on my 74 CJ-5 and the bill is way over. BTF full width kit, RE YJ SOA springs, RE YJ shackles, rear spring buckets and shackle mounts, extended brakelines, Tom Woods driveshafts, BTF drag link and tie rod, the list goes on and that's only suspension. There's no way to safely SOA your rig with $50.

If you don't know anything about SOA - then stay away from it!!

Either do more research about SOA or get a SUA kit and be done with it.

I'm actually SUA - with D44's swapped in and love it. If I was gonna go further with this rig - I'd go complete coils instead but only before I research my ass off about how they work and exactly how I'd want it set up.

If you don't know anything about SOA - then stay away from it!!

Either do more research about SOA or get a SUA kit and be done with it.

I'm actually SUA - with D44's swapped in and love it. If I was gonna go further with this rig - I'd go complete coils instead but only before I research my ass off about how they work and exactly how I'd want it set up.

Just wait til part II of that show when he installs that $800 hi-steer set-up to get rid of that bent drag-link :shaking: SOA done right is easily $1k.

Everytime they run that episode, the boards get crashed with these kinds of questions for at least a month. Nobody bothers to come back next week and watch part two.

For $50 they bought perches, welded them to the top of the axles and moved the springs over the axles. Later they are going to add extended braided SS brake lines, Eddlebrock IAS shocks, a ladder bar, revolver shackles, a custom hi-steer kit, etc.

After all of that, they stick a set of square tube driveshafts on the thing. Not a problem for a dedicated trail rig, or a front DS on something with hubs, but, as soon as you attempt that for a rear DS for a vehicle that actually gets street driven, forget it.

Extreme4x4 is a good show, and a great place to go for entertainment, but, don't expect for them to go over every single nuiassance, of an SOA in a 23min TV show. There's a lot more to it than welding new perches on the top of the axle.

You did the right thing by asking questions and you did it in the right place, just keep reading and you'll be able to build the foundation you need to attempt a job like that.

Search like a mo-fo before you consider SOA. THere are hundreds of threads on this board dedicated to the topic.

With that said - I had a reputible shop just out of St. Louis do my SOA for a shade under 1500 bucks. Worth every penny in my opinion to have someone that really knows what they are doing work on my stuff.

If you want to do an SOA lift - drop a line to a few shops in your area and get some pricing... THEN ask if you can stay for the build and be tool B!tch. You will learn tons - just make sure the dude doing the lift is cool with you asking questions.

I don't mean to insult your intelligence with this post - but please remember that this is not some bolt together kit. THere are NO instructions with an SOA lift...

With that said - I had a reputible shop just out of St. Louis do my SOA for a shade under 1500 bucks. Worth every penny in my opinion to have someone that really knows what they are doing work on my stuff.

Just curious, who did it? I'm from St. Louis.

I notice everyone is putting new springs on. Why is this necessary and why cant stock springs be used.

I notice everyone is putting new springs on. Why is this necessary and why cant stock springs be used.

well you can use stock ones. that is what i first did mine with. this summer while swapping axles, i'm going to put together some custom spring packs from several sets of stock springs.

the only thing with stock springs is that you'll wear them out pretty fast. I have killed the rear springs on my Jeep from driving on the roads and trips to Tellico and all. if you have them, i don't see anything wrong with using stock springs to start out with

Lol,
my brother in law just hit me with the "why don't you just put a square driveshaft on the front" after watching that crap.

Hell, SOA IS cheap...it's the hi-steer arms, TRE's, reverse reamed pitmans, extended towers, brake lines, CV shafts, long-slip shafts, bumpstops, etc that kill you. :D

I did a SOA on my CJ7 and the only things I bought were dropped pitman arm - $80, Extended Brake lines - @ $120. I made my own perches, but the only prob I ran into was the E-brake cables were too short, So I got a cable from a CJ8 and moved the stock bracket were the equalizer is back. It is long enough now but still does not tighten enough to hold the jeep???

Oh yeah and of course wheels and tires.