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154 1104 Custom Jeep Suspension Scrounger - custom Spring Hanger Plate - Photo 35905605

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  • Thankfully for us Commando frames are nearly fully-boxed, which saved us some cutting and plating work. We just had to build these small plates in front of the crossmember since this is where our spring hangers would mount with our home-built shackle reversal setup. We cut some cold-rolled, 1/8-inch-thick plate to size and welded it in.
Thankfully for us Commando frames are nearly fully-boxed, which saved us some cutting and plating work. We just had to build these small plates in front of the crossmember since this is where our spring hangers would mount with our home-built shackle reversal setup. We cut some cold-rolled, 1/8-inch-thick plate to size and welded it in.
Here's our starting point. The deeply offset stock Commando spring packs aren't close to any other Jeep spring in measurement. Ours had been given a monkey-cluster lift by tossing an incredibly thick add-a-leaf into the mix. Inverted shackles had severely bent the main springs, rendering them useless. The only saving grace to this disaster is the stainless extended brake lines had already been installed for us. Otherwise, we cut everything of the old suspension off and started with bare framerails. Thankfully for us Commando frames are nearly fully-boxed, which saved us some cutting and plating work. We just had to build these small plates in front of the crossmember since this is where our spring hangers would mount with our home-built shackle reversal setup. We cut some cold-rolled, 1/8-inch-thick plate to size and welded it in. We wanted to smooth the ride on-road and ease hard hits at speed off-road, so a shackle reversal setup go the nod. We tacked the hangers into position and hung the Rancho RS44044 2 1/2 inch wide Wagoneer springs with the short centerpin to eye side facing forward. Normally you need to ensure the spring hangers are square and parallel with lots of measuring and some all thread bolted between both hangers eyelets bolt holes, but we cheated and used the old stock shackle hangers as a guide. Once our new spring hangers were tacked on, we removed the rivets holding on the stock shackle hangers and pounded them off. Here's a closer look at our spring hangers. We had modified a couple M.O.R.E. shackle reversal spring hangers for use in the rear of our '48 Willy pickup by cutting and shortening them. M.O.R.E. now offers its hangers in a "stubby" version which would have saved us some effort. Between the new spring mount location and the different centerpin-to-spring eye measurements the front axle was moved forward 2 inches. We could have moved it farther forward but modifications to the stock steering linkage and steering box mount would have been necessary. We wanted to keep the suspension low and simple. Rather than weld a shackle hanger on the bottom of the framerail, we used a 1 3/4-inch holesaw to pierce the boxed frame into which a 2 3/4-inch-long section of 1 3/4-inch, 0.120-wall tubing was welded. Standard 1 1/2-inch-diameter poly bushings can then be inserted. To determine the where to drill, we hung a single shackle on the spring and swung it up into place near the frame until the shackle was hanging around 45 degrees forward at full droop. Mocking up our shackle hanger location at a forward-facing 45-degree angle with no load on the suspension (to mimic suspension droop) translated into a nice 20-30-degree shackle angle with the vehicle weight on the springs. This still allows the shackle plenty of rearward movement as the springs grow without hitting the framerails. More highly-arched springs will require longer shackles or a more-neutral shackle angle with the vehicle weight on the springs. Since the stock spring packs were narrower than the 2 1/2-inch-wide Rancho Wagoneer lift springs, we had to nip a bit off the centersection casting for spring U-bolt clearance. We used a pair of YJ spring plates with some stock Dana 30 U-bolts to cinch the axle to the springs. Don't forget to measure your caster and pinion angles. Our caster came out at a perfect 6.5 degrees, but you can use steel shims that bolt to the spring centerpins to dial in your angles. Shoot for 5-7 degrees of positive caster in the front axle for good handling on-road. Because it's fairly easy to get 8 to10 inches of wheel travel out of Rancho's RS44044 springs, we needed to install some longer shocks. Back in the early 2000s we scooped up several pairs of these '99-'04 Super Duty shock mounts from the dumpsters of our local off-road shops. They're not as common nowadays, but if you can't find any at scrap-pricing the dealerships still sell them for around $20 each under PN F81Z-18183-A. Or, the older pre-'99 stamped steel F-250/F-350 mounts sell for even less under PN E5TZ-18183-A.
Finally, we rummaged through our parts shed and came up with a pair of 8-inch-travel Rancho RS5000 shocks (PN RS5156) off the front of an old '89 F-250 tow rig we used to own. They proved the right length, with plenty of uptravel without bottoming and lots of droop. We welded the lower shock mounts directly to the axle tube for clearance and to work with the shocks we had on hand. With a shackle-forward arrangement, the axle travels down and back as suspension droops and up and forward as it compresses, requiring comparatively little driveshaft slip spline travel. This is opposite of a shackle-reversal suspension, which sees more travel in the driveshaft slip spline. We lengthened our stock shaft for our increased wheelbase just enough that the slip splines wouldn't separate at full-droop. However, this didn't leave enough spline to fully collapse the shaft on suspension compression, so we used 1-inch Rancho dropped bumpstops (PN RS8203) to prevent the shaft from bottoming and destroying our T-case. It's only temporary until we can have a proper long-travel shaft built.
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