Has anyone used longer rear leaf springs in their 109. What did you use and how did it work out?

I'm swapping in some disco I axles and wanted to use leaf springs in the rear. It seems like moving the rear mounts back and using longer springs to center up the axle would be pretty strait forward?
Thanks for the help

Some people put 63" Chevy pick-up (don't ask me which one, someone else will know) springs on the rear of a 109" with good result.

The most famous of all is the SI Tim Cooper built, have a look here, plenty of pics:
http://www.pangolin4x4.com/bigpickup/index.htm

They're 15" longer than standard rear springs so you would need to move the spring hanger forward and the shackle mount on the shackle backwards to keep the axle in roughly the same spot.

But if you want more articulation, the first thing to do is throw away those short front springs and fit rear springs up front, 12"longer, and fit some decent long travel shocks. I've got 3leaf rear parabolics up front with 5125 Bilsteins with 14" stroke.
Heaps more articulation than standard, and it's got more at the front than at the back (rear is still standard, but not for long:D)..

Rear springs up front and those chevy springs at the back will make some awesome articulation. Though I'm quite happy with the 4leaf parabolics. I'll get a pretty balanced suspension when I've fitted the longer shackles and Bilstein shocks to the back..

There could be more options around, but this one is tried and tested..

Thanks for the info. I was hoping to only have to move the rear mount back. However those 63" springs look pretty awesome. I'm putting coils up front and wanted to keep it simple in back. I'm not building a crawling machine. I want something that overcomes some of the series rig's trouble areas without breaking the bank.
I have parabolics on my 88. No doubt there's a huge improvement over the standard rover units. I'm only swapping to coils up front so that I can get the steering geometry to work right.
Thanks again,
Mitch

I used rear Jeep YJ springs up front and retained the stock rears but sandwiched adhesive polypropylene sheets about .0625 thick between the leaves to help them slide on each other. Rear articulation wasn't fantastic but the ride was very nice, front articulation was tremendous.
On my jeep I just had custom leaves made, Alcan spring in Grand Junction CO made them and the articulation was out of this world. It was however scary as hell driving it on the street.

Keeping leafs at the front is dead easy. Lots easier than going to coils.
I've got RR axles on mine at the moment. I made the spring seats 25mm tall and the track rod just clears the leafs.

It's a lot easier to fabricate those spring seats than it is to weld on all the coil suspension stuff to the chassis and have that lined-up well.

Rear springs up front (I've got 3leaf para's) ride great! Nice and supple, the original length 2leaf that you can get are too soft, they bottom out too easily.

I'd stick to leafs for simplicity and huge flex as a bonus.

@Revor. Did Alcan include those awesome Orbit Eyes in your springs? Howcome it was that scary to drive? My springs are soft as hell but it's not scaey to drive. As long as you don't try to go through the corners too fast...bodyroll is...how do you put it......excessive:D

Well, there's no turning back now. I've been busy cutting and grinding and am about to weld up the buckets. I have the front half of a wasted defender chassis I'm scavaging parts off. It seemed strait forward until I started taking measurements. I'm getting by though. I spoke with Keith about it a few months ago who came up with the idea of using the outrigger that supports the bulk head as a point of reference. I'll post some pics soon.

Be careful. I have a SIII chassis here where the bulkhead outrigger is off 1/2 from the other with respect to the rear crossmember. I would imagine the Def. chassis are better but LR was known to have wildly varying chassis tolerances and measurements. Then again, if it made it off the assembly line 1/2 off, you probably won't die if it's not 100% accurate :D