sierrablue wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:46 am
thej10guy and I have been discussing some for his truck, pretty much the same goal. One of the ideas I came up with was the '67-'79 Fords have a 3-link from the factory. You could cut all of the suspension pieces out and take the axle from that (D44), and change it as needed for the narrower Jeep frame. However, that axle is the right width for a J10, not for a Wagoneer.
Another idea I had was taking the rear end out of a late '60s coil-sprung GM. I can't remember if it was GMC or Chevrolet--one of them had coils and the other had leafs.
Those are the only relatively low-cost, minimal fab ideas we've come up with so far.
Here’s some input to this, sorry Seirra it’s not pretty lol.
The ford radius arm stuff is ok but to use on a FSJ, it needs be quite tall. Then the is the performance limitations, it drives and rides ok but in 4wd the performance is mediocre at best, if doin the work, get everything out of it you can get. Using 2 lower control arms and a single upper with a track bar you are able to optimize that on road and off-road performance, contrary to popular belief they go hand in hand. Show me a vehicle that doesn’t drive well on the street and it has major performance issues in the dirt the dirt just covers up the poor handling.
The “truck arms” as nascar called them when they used them, were used by all GM 2wd trucks from 1950-1972 and were an option. Again they are just OK. If doing the work do a similar 3 link/track bar set up as the front or step up a little more and do a triangulated 4 link and really optimize both on and off road performance.
If you feel like practicing and making some improvement use the old school set ups or go modern and have better performance.