SOA Lift

For the back, I did a spring-over lift where basically the springs are moved from beneath the axle tube to above it.   For this, I relied on the advice from some friends on the net who have done this lift themselves in pretty much the same way and then I added my own flavor to the mix.

The first step is to get the back of the vehicle up in the air and secure it with jack stands, wheel chocks, etc.  Pull the wheels off and disconnect the parking brake cables, brake line and ABS sensor wire.  Remove the shocks and the u-bolts and the axle is ready to come out. 

Move a floor jack in under the differential to support the axle and lift it slightly until it comes up off the springs.  Make sure it's steady and won't fall over one way or the other off the jack. After getting the weight off the springs, you can unbolt and remove the shackles to let the springs pivot down and out of the way.  Lower the axle and roll it out the back.  When I did this, I had removed the fuel tank so it was pretty easy to get the axle out.  With the tank in place, it may be a bit harder to get it out under the tank depending on how high you have the rear end in the air.

Things look pretty roomy once you get the axle, tank and exhaust system out.

After rolling the axle out you can support it with milk crates or whatever else you have available.  This makes it much easier to work on with the grinder to remove the old spring pads.

Start with a small wheel grinder with the thinnest wheel you can find or better yet use an air driven cutoff wheel.  Carefully grind away the weld on one side of the spring pad so you don't go to deep into the axle but deep enough to break the weld.  You can use a chisel to break it loose when it looks close, but you shouldn't have to.  It'll make a little "click" and pop open 1/8" or so.  Do the same to the other side and you can remove the spring pad.

Shown here is the new spring pad in place on top of the axle and the old pad that was removed from the bottom of the axle in the foreground.

These new pads are from AFCO Racing.   They provide a lot of stuff for circle track racing but have a lot of suspension pieces 4 wheelers may find useful.  These pads are 2½" wide and fit a 3" diameter axle tube.  Rather than welding on, they clamp firmly to the axle which also means they can easily be fine-tuned for adjusting the pinion angle after the lift. 

I was introduced to these pads by Randy, the editor of the Isuzu Offroad page who has used them himself on his own Amigo and a friends CJ.  He said they work great and have done so for me as well.

This is the old u-bolt plate that goes between the u-bolts and the axle to prevent it from creasing when tightening them down.   You can't use them as is after the spring over because of the clamp for the spring pad being in the way.  To make them fit, cut the plates down the middle and install them with the raised ridge between the u-bolt and the spring pad clamp to protect the axle tube as before.  Note the completed assembly below for a better picture.

After cleaning up the axle and getting the new pads in place, tighten up the pads so they're snug and at approximately the correct angle.  Eyeballing it should be close enough but be aware that it's better to have the pinion pointing down too far than up.  The reason being that after you get the springs clamped to it and get the wheels on and weight on the axle, you can use a jack under the pinion to rotate it up until you get the angle you want before tightening things up for good.

After getting the axle back in and the truck back on its own wheels, use a magnetic angle finder to adjust the pinion angle accordingly.

You might want to climb in back and jump up and down a few times to make sure the springs and pads settle in completely.  You could drive it, but I wouldn't recommend taking it too far.  Torque the u-bolts and spring pad clamps down and you're done with the hard part.

The final step is to re-attach all the lines and the shocks.  I used Earl's for the brake lines and fittings.  For shocks, I chose Rancho 9000s and made custom mounts on the axle and the frame for them.

Done like this, the lift will net you about 6", which is a little too much.  One of the things I did to reduce the lift was make new front mounts for the springs.  These reduce the lift a little over and inch and add about 3" of ground clearance compared to the stock ones. 

I also removed the middle spring in the pack which dropped it another inch or so but also led to the nice little reverse bend I have in the main leaf now.  I wouldn't suggest this at all.  Here I've put the leaf back in and you can see the bend in the main leaf.  It doesn't seem to hurt anything and it sits about the right height for me so I'll leave it this way.

Removing the small (3rd) leaf is an option, but I think you might end up with the same problem I had.  I've talked to some who have removed the overload springs though and aren't apparently having problems other than reduced load carrying ability.

One option I may look at in the future is replacing the spring shackle at the back of the spring with a slider assembly.  This is basically a pin that goes through the eye of the spring and has rollers on either end that ride in a horizontal track.  As the spring compress and droops, the roller pin moves back and forth to compensate.  Since they're rollers, it would seem that as long as they were periodically maintained they'd give a smooth ride. 

The problem I do see here would be loss of articulation since they don't hang lower at full droop.  I do have an idea on how to get around this by mounting it on a lever that can pivot down similar to what some rigs do now with regular shackles for more droop.  I'll leave that for later though if I decide to try it.

Created by: Dan Houlton
This page was last updated in 1997
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