I have a 74' 620 with a pretty shody SAS on it. The front springs feel like a pogo stick when I drive down the road. It's probably a combination of the springs being warped, geometry, and they may be for/from a much heavier truck. The truck bounces when I run over man hole covers.
The springs are pictures below. They are about 2 inch wide. I measured them once but didn't write it down. I will get some real number when I get home today. I would like to replace them for a better ride just to make it a few more months until I can find a better set of axels.
Any help would be great.
I would like to either know what they are so I can directly replace them. Or figure out the best spring to replace them with Once I have a better set of axles. I'm looking for something that will ride ok going done the road but can still be used for occasional off roading. Nothing insane just a trip to the 4x4 park (staying in the easy sections) or running up fire roads that may have some lightly washed out area's.
The truck has a dana 20 transfer case and dana 25 front and Stock datsun rear axle. With the L18 engine +datsun 4speed. So its really on the light side. I have an L20 that im rebuilding because the L18 is tired and smokes pretty bad. The suspension on the truck seems all around why to stiff for the weight.
Your leafs are undoubtedly rust welded together. I would take them apart, scrape and sand off all the leafs, throw some good grease in there and put them back together. Grease up the shackels to while you're at it. This is all under the assumption you don't want to spend too much money on it right now.....
Maybe you'll be lucky and be able to use early Gen Toyota pickup leaf packs. Lots of aftermarket support there.
Well, it uses a CJ front end, and a CJ transfer case, so most likely they are CJ springs. Without changing to the more common 2.5" width, you may be able to use CJ springs. But, with those small of springs, you lighten the spring rate up too much, and your likely to start bending leafs.
Thanks. I will try cleaning them and greaseing them. I have read other threads that have said to do that with good results.
I did get around to measuring them. They are 1 and 3/4 inches wide and about 41 inches long. A friend has given me some springs off of what I thought was a 78 CJ. But those are much wider. Probably 2.5inch wide. They will wait until I have better Axels.
They are a little warped already. You may be able to see it in this pic.
The axel is supporting the truck in the pic. This was when I was upgrading/fixing the brake system. Which is finally working well.
Also it seem like they don't have a lot of travel before they hit the bump stops. Maybe ~4 inches. So they are way fatigued if they they should be higher.
Thats the same site I found the brake upgrade on. Luckily these brakes should fit on a Dana 44 in the future.
They look just like the ones he is changing out. and mesure 1.75 wide also. I also checked on rock auto and they have them. But I don't want to waste money on these springs so Im going to clean these up and maybe look for a junkyard/used set to swap leafs around with.
Waggy springs would work nice if you do junk yard springs.You will have to build new mounts since they are wider and longer but a much nicer ride.Also I see you are 5lug front and 6 in the rear so if you took the knuckles out off a chevy or Waggy and the inner and outer axle shafts but they will need cut and resplined for the spline and length of your dana 30.Then you would match the rear.The best thing to do if you want to keep the stock gears and rear axle is find a 79 toyota frontend or one with 4.37 gears and just swap it in when you change springs since they mount farther apart than the Jeep axle you have, also those brakes will work better with your master cyl. size.
My rear Axel hubs were re-drilled for 5 lug. Or they maybe custom because they didn't have extra holes in them. Kinda sucks because I had to drill 4 extra holes in the new drums I put on back there.
I have already upgraded to a 280ZX 15/16 MC for the front brakes and it works really good. Not like my 510 but still pretty good feel for a truck. I added a proportioning valve when I put the MC and disk brakes on the front. I have it blocking nearly all the pressure in the rear because it had rear lock up issues before I replaced all the old parts back there. I'm slowly tuning it get the perfect brake balance.
I keep hearing about the Waggy springs being awesome. Will they still work good with a really light truck? Nearly all the threads I read about them have them going on to CJ's and YJ's. Which are a bit heavier than my truck.
My front axel is a dana 25 which is a lot like a 30 but older and weaker. When I upgrade it I will also upgrade the rear. I'm currently researching waggy front dana44 and Izusu trooper rear metric dana44(If the jeep is missing its rear axel). I need to double check width I would like to go a few inches wider but not full size.
I'm thinking of just replacing the front springs with new early CJ springs.
My truck currently has 7 leafs on the front axle springs.
There are 4 different packs listed on rock auto.
5 leaf OMIX-ADA #1820205
7 leaf OMIX-ADA #1820103
9 leaf OMIX-ADA #1820202
10 leaf OMIX-ADA #1820104
All but the 5 leaf are listed as front and rear.
Which pack was used with the lightest truck?
Would any of them be longer/shorter than the rest and not fit?
Were there any that were crappy and should be avoided?
Current springs are slightly S shaped and really flat when the truck is sitting on level ground. I don't know how the truck drove when they were newley installed.
My rear springs are also sagged and probably as bad off. They are not the same as the front. They may be the stock 720 springs just mounted over the axle.
My rear springs are also sagged and probably as bad off. They are not the same as the front. They may be the stock 720 springs just mounted over the axle.
720 4x4 springs mount on top of the axle from the factory.
My 720 4x4 had 2 main leafs with the second that went basically as long as the first but without the curl at the end, and then 2 overload springs.
There are guys with Toyota's that have ran waggy and they work good. they are cheap and will ride nice. Doing a shackle reversal makes a good difference to. The rear springs on your truck should be stock , just mounted on the top of the axle.
I don't think it was dealer installed. Some of the work is pretty shotty. The steering was doing very badly. The welds don't look that great and there are tons of short cuts all over the truck.
The rear springs are working but not the best. They are probably rusted together too.
Im guessing its using the stock CJ shocks too. Need to check on that price of those.
Does any one know what the early CJ 5 leaf spring packs were for?
-Avery
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