It takes some clanging brass marbles to strip your flattie down to the bare frame and set up your own suspension. But unless you’ve got a butt-load of money, that’s the only way you’ll get exactly what you want. In our case, we were going for a spring-over conversion using Wrangler springs. We wanted a shackle reversal in the front so we wouldn’t continually bend leaf springs, and we wanted to extend the wheelbase as much as humanly possible for better climbing capability and a slightly longer rear driveshaft.
Normally, such a project would involve a lot of cutting and grinding to make the spring mounts and shackle hangers. Then, there’s the issue of finding a good usable set of springs. That’s why we were happier than Rosie O’Donnell at Little Debbie’s lesbian coming-out party when we found a few shortcuts.
While drooling over the Mountain Off-Road Enterprises catalog, it struck us that we could make a CJ shackle reversal system work on our ’53 frame. The only hang-up was the rear-spring main eye mount, which we found in the 4Wheel Drive Hardware catalog. As for springs, we just got plain lazy and picked up the Superlift catalog to order some stock YJ rear replacement springs, but decided instead on the softer 1 ½-inch-lift versions for a front application. Here’s how it all came together.
Tools needed
Common handtools
Angle grinder
Reciprocating saw
Welder
C-clamp (2 are better)
Big honkin’ hammer