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Alcan leaf springs & uptravel

4K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  CCJC 
#1 ·
I am half way into my RE 1 1/2" soa leaf spring swap and don't like them. I have RE on the rear axle and am thinking about selling them and getting on the Alcan bandwagon. The reason I went to RE is that they are made for soa with the main leaf going over the top of the eyes, rather than the bottom. This extra arch keeps the leaves from getting into as much negative arch, and I use a lot of uptravel. However, the REs ride like a lumber truck and I had a way better ride with my junkyard spring packs. Only I kept breaking them and thus the swap.

The question: If you use Alcan on soa, do you have a lot of uptravel?
 
#2 ·
I'm guessing at this point you don't know how to set up a suspension. So assuming that the answer is going to be no and yes. How much uptravel you have is going to be based on, how much flex the springs has, how much lift the spring has, vehicle weight, bumpstop setup, fender clearance and tire size. On average id say a flat leaf spring probably has 4 Inches plus or minus or uptravel. Slighty lifted ones may have a bit more uptravel but less down travel.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the reply. My suspension is set up ok, I like the axle movement. I'm not doing the low center of gravity thing where you may have 2" up and 12" down travel. My suspension is equal both ways. My buddy that I have run with for several years has Alcan springs on his cj7 and they perform well, and have never broken. We jeep pretty hard. However, his jeep was set up so that it doesn't have a lot of up travel. I am wanting to know I somebody out there has a lot of up travel with leaf springs, and has good luck with their springs.
 
#6 ·
I'm not too sure what springs no matter what the quality could handle 5 inches of negative arch travel... if thats what you mean it all depends on how you have alcan arch your springs for your desired height and the weight of yoru vehicle. if they are three or 4 inch lift springs then yeah i supposed you could take them into the negative 1 to 2 inches or so and they would do just fine with it, but i dont really recomend bending your leaves into negative arch 5 inches deep... hope the input helps
 
#8 ·
This is what I'm talking about. This is pretty much the answer except for dialing in the numbers. If an alcan spring has about 2" arch, then you would have 3" negative arch in 5" up travel at the spring plate. My junkyard springs could do it but they broke leaves every now and then. From what I hear, almost everyone's does. That's the benifit of RE soa spring packs, the leaves arch over the top of the eyes giving an additional 2" of arch before negative arch.

As for the comment about springs not doing negative arch, I'm sure we've all seen the Ford pickups with the front leaf springs that are factory built with tons of negative arch.

Anyway, this is all helpful and thanks for the replies. This helps me think things through as I need to before investing several more hundred dollars on springs.

I suppose if I wanted a lots of down travel, but not much up travel I would just throw on some 42" tires and be done with it.
 
#9 ·
It also has to do with the length of shackle you are running. I have 3" Alcans in a SUA setup and I am pretty sure that I can get 5" of uptravel and my springs are basically flat when they touch the bumpstop and that is with 5/8" MORE lift shackles
 
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