Scout 80 suspension questions

[grendel_cave]

As my Scout 80 gets closer and closer to leaving the garage it has been in for the past few years, some nasty things have revealed themselves. One of the issues has to do with the suspension. When I initially put this rig together, I wanted as little lift as possible to safely accommodate 33" x 10.50 tires. I was assured that a 4 inch lift could do this. I went with 2.5 inch alcan lift springs, 1.5" extended shackles, reverse shackles. I thought this would do the trick, however, after one or two test drives and hitting a moderate ditch, the springs flexed too much, the passenger side fender got crunched, and the Dana 44s crunched in the oil pain. Seems I forgot to install the bump stops. I want to stop this from ever happening again (even without the bump stops), but I'm not 100% sure what direction to go in. My first thought it to put the axles over the springs. But I really don't want an extreme, unstable lift. With 2.5 inch lift springs, 1.5" lift shackles, and spring over axle, I'd probably wind up with at least 10 inches of lift. Any ideas?

These were some of the things I discovered when I got to double checking.

1. Rear shackles: 6 inches from center to center. Front shackles: 4.5 inches center to center. Is this correct? Shouldn't all the shackles be the same length? Is the 80 frame lower to the ground than the rear?

2. Would it be better to get a set of 4 inch shackles to go all the way around to minimize lift or to just get 5 inch rear shackles and be off 1/2 in the rear?

3. Aside from performing a spring over axle lift, is there anything else that can be done to get the required lift?

4. I've already to cut and turned the knuckles on the axles to work with the 4 inch lift. With performing a spring over axle, I'm wondering how badly that is going to screw up my angles between transfer case and axles.

Thanks, aaron

 

[Scoutboy74]

First off, you don't have a 4" lift. You've got more like 3". Extended shackles only provide half their length in added lift. I'm not sure who assured you that 4" would be plenty to clear 33's, but a true 4" lift is barely adequate for that tire size. Going SOA nets @ 5.5 inches of lift before you factor in springs and shackles, but you've already done the c-n-t which is a big part of that job on the front. Do you still have the stock springs?