Spring Over Conversion

[grahamjohnson54]

Alright I'm a newbie and just purchased a 1973 Scout II with a spring over, but they didn't finish it or do it very well. I'm in the process of changing out the tie rod end which has play in excess of 1/2 an inch with a hind joint? I noticed that besides there being no shock mounts on the front axle on order that the Scout sits slightly lower on the driver side than on the passenger side. Part of this is in the shackles and bushing which are also on order, but it appears to me that axle tube to top of leaf spring on the driver side is 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch lower than that on passenger side. The leaf springs on the passenger side front are on a thicker part of the axle and there is visible gap underneath u bolts. I'm thinking of grinding out carefully the excess to get u bolts to fit snug. Is this a good idea? Do I also need to add a shim on the driver side underneath the leaf springs to add the 1/4 to 1/2 inch that they are different? If so what would you use to accomplish this? The last problem is that currently on the passenger front axle the u bolts go through 2 of the three piece standard u bolt plate. Would it be best to fabricate a single piece plate that fits the new u bolts once I have ground out the material and gotten them to fit nice and snug? Thanks

 

[Scooter]

I recently did the spring over conversion on my 74 Scout II. And I had the same thing of being a 1/2" lower on the driver side. My front axle housing was a later model Scout Dana 44 that a shop in san jose modified for the spring over. I did some measuring, and found out that the spring perch on axle housing on the driver side was a 1/2" lower than the perch on passenger side. After cutting out a piece of 2"x6" x 1/2" thick plate, and then welded it to the spring perch, on driver side, of the housing. Problem solved. Now my Scout sits level.

Might wanna start there. Measure the spring perches.

 

[tsm1mt]

scouts leaned when they left the factory, for no obvious reason. The factory solution was to install a 1/4" lowering block on one side to take out the lean.

When doing an SOA (or even a spring-under lift) that lowering block needs to become a lift block, and switch sides.

It's often discarded.