I was doing some research on a 1/4 elliptical setup and was wondering if can use the 1/2ton springs out of my truck? Since the truck is more like a rockbuggy now , no more sheetmetal, cab is cut off(only firewall and floor left) and lightweight I think i could use the stock springs for a 1/4 elliptical setup. I'm gonna cut the rear of the frame and build a tubeframe. I saw that most guys go with heavier springs (3/4ton) for a 1/4 elliptical setup.
Any thoughts?

I know that alot of guys use wrangler springs for buggies but they combine packs until they have ten or eleven leaves! Hope that helps. If it were me I would definitely get springs specifically designed for that type of application.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that 1/2 on springs would work alone, and here's why:

My Jeep has the rear chopped off along with the rear frame. All that's left of the original body is part of the floor, firewall, cowl, and hood. No fenders. So it's realtively light compared to a normal CJ. That's not where the problem lays though. The problem is that, when doing a 1/4 elip, very seldom is exactly half the pack used. I don't know all the exact science of springs, but it seems to me that, if the pack was cut exactly in half, the rate would stay the same assuming that you mounted it at the tips and such. But since no one uses half a pack, and most of the time they use more than half, the rate decreases ALOT due to more leverage being applied farther from the fulcrum. Here's my real-world experience with mine: I use Chevy 1-ton packs which each had 7 or 8 leaves in them with a big overload leaf. I only left out one leaf from the original packs in the end. I even cut and used the overload leaf for when I have a heavy load in the back. (Don't want it to sag TOO much.) It doesn't utilize the overload leaf until extreme uptravel, which is good, IMO. But I tried to match the spring rate to the front 44044's, roughly. I did this by applying weight to the front and doing the same to the rear. It ended up farily even with the rear being just a little more soft. So the results with almost an entire 1-ton pack on a small jeep were pretty soft. I probably used 3/4 the length of the original packs, too. I knwo for a fact that a 1/2 ton pack would have been ENTIRELY too soft. I hope this helps.

J. J.

thanks guys. I guess I'll have to hunt up some 1 ton springs and start playing around with them. Another option would the use of airbags instead of the springs, with a leverage system. Then the airbags don't have to have alot of travel