Preliminary Pictures

Big Texas style rear bumper - you could land this thing on an aircraft carrier.


Unusual plates welded along the front passenger side frame rail


Rear hanger of front passenger side spring


Front hanger of rear passenger side spring. Wierd stuff going on here.


Rear shackle of passenger side rear spring. Can't buy this on from Quadratec!


Probably the biggest area of concern is here - the rear spring hanger of the drivers side rear spring. The frame is actually bent downward aft of this point. The hanger is bolted to a poorly welded plate in a way that when the spring is under compression, the home-built shackle actually contacts one of the bolts attaching the hanger to the plate. This really needs to be fixed.


Another angle of that same drivers side rear hanger. The plate wasn't even welded to the frame level. See how crooked the spring and shackle are.


Same story on the drivers side rear spring. This is the front hanger of that spring.


Rear hanger of front drivers side spring


This shot shows some ugly work with the torch where they burned through the frame some. May be the remnants of some kind of winch plate or some other kind of bumper reinforcement.


This last one just shows the shackle reversal setup in the front

The Plan

The goal here is to swap a set of 1982 CJ-8 wide-track axles under a 1981 CJ-8 that currently has narrow-track axles. In the process, some decisions need to be made and some problems made right for it to work and keep on working. The first decision that needs to be made is what lift to use. This has three parts; width of springs, manufacturer of springs / lift kit, and height of the lift. The last one - height might have already been determined (probably going to be a 2 1/2" lift) The width of springs may too be 2 1/2" which is what the Jeep YJ's all came with. These are known for better ride quality and flex. The manufacturer of the lift kit is still to be determined. This will determine how many additional parts need to be purchased outside of the kit. It has been determined that the spring hangers may all need to go as they are, as some might put it, ghetto-fabulous! Some real weird engineering went into the design of them. Pictures to come! Once off, they will need to be replaced with new ones either CJ spring width or 2 1/2" to accommodate the wider YJ style springs. Shocks will also need to be considered if not in the kit as will longer brake lines and shims to correct the axle geometry. With just a 2 1/2 inch lift, new driveshafts will probably not be required but that will need to be explored just to be safe. Beyond that - the front steering components will need to be corrected as there is a great deal of play in them right now in the current home of the axles - my 1982 Jeep Scrambler.