My buddy wants to do a spring over on his 81' J10. I told him that the back would be no problem but the front would be rather difficult considering the driverside spring perch would have to be welded into the the cast center section. I took a welding class my junior and senior year in high school, and I learned how to weld cast iron. however I do not have the tools to heat the centersection here at home. He is still set on doing a spring over what advice would you guys have to give on putting a spring perch in the cast iron center section

I did a spring over with a j10 axle on my flatty. Get a die or angle grinder and notch where the u-bolts will have to go. That will make them fit like they are supposed to. As for the welding part, im no expert on it but do a search on welding cast.

The back is already SOA... are you planning to add lift blocks in the back?

no he's ge tting some alcans

How 'bout this idea, if you want it to be as strong and clean as possible, find a Chevy front 44, It'd already be setup for SOA, you could just swap the J10 outers onto it. I'm running a chevy 44 on the front of my CJ, with a waggy rear & I swapped the outers from a waggy front to get 6 bolt all around.

-Mel

it's a later J10 with a driver side dif, chevy won't work. I'd find a ford, but that's not going to happen around here. All the rednecks in this area have chevy's

this might be completely wrong, and someone chime in if its a really bad idea, but the first time I welded to cast it was on a cj dana 30 where half was on the tube, the other half on the cast. i did the non cast part first and immediately jumped over to the cast and never let up until there was a fat bead there. i think the problem is cooling too fast, not heating up too fast. the whole thing was pretty hot by the time I was done and it looked decent and stood up to the 5 lb sledge test

now i use mapp gas to heat things up, its pretty cheap and very portable