so its getting nice out and im going to be putting my bronco back on the road fairly soon, so its about time I replace my shocks and coil springs in my truck as there pretty worn out. my problem is I havnt done any suspension work to it since I bought it and I am unsure if it is lifted or not as the po never said. it has 35" gumbos on it right now but they are pretty worn down, they also rub when u crank the wheel all the way.

is there any thing I should look for in the suspension that will be a tell tale sign that its lifted? I am willing to remove the coils and measure there length with no weight on them if need be to find out.

does anyone have any dimensions of the length of stock coils unloaded/loaded and 2-4" coils unloaded/loaded? thanks in advance!

also its and 82 bronco, and I can take some pictures today if/when I get it out of the storage shelter the lighting is too ****ty to take pics while its still inside there

 

It is highly unlikely that even an '82 will fit 35's without some form of lift. Check for the obvious first. Coils can have leveling spacers added below them in the saddles. Longer springs really would need to be measured to be certain of the amount of height differential. The leaf springs can have blocks or add-a-leafs which should be easy enough to spot between the axle and bottom leaf of the OEM springs. If you find nothing there, check the body mounts for a body lift. Although a body lift is usually easy to spot because of the odd distance between bumpers and body.

 

Ok thanks for your response. I know it doesn't have a body lift in it, I'll go out and look at the springs and leaves when it stops raining. If i remember correctly the po said something about doing a custom thing to the front axle that I think he said lifted it up about two inches. It's hard to describe I will take a picture today. Thanks again for your help.

 

heres some pics everything looked stock in the suspension and I took pics of the po's custom thing too

 

The rear leaves look to be stock. The front is a rather frightening attempt to drop the shock/spring towers away from the frame which leaves no support and only the sheer strength of the bolts holding them to the side of the frame. Come down too hard on that setup and you will sheer the mounting bolts right off. The same appears to have been done with the radius arm brackets. Again, with no support other than the bolts holding them to the side of the frame rail you run the very real risk of sheering bolts and completely disconnecting any of those components from the frame.

With that said, there are plenty of lift manufacturers out there who make quality radius arm drop brackets. Also, the idea of dropping the spring/shock buckets in the manner it has been done presents the dangers already mentioned. The ENTIRE weight of the front half of your truck is being help up by the four or six bolts that are holding that buckets two inches away from where they were designed to sit on the frame rails with the "L" portion of the buckets shown in the photo resting squarely on the frame itself. You would be best off to put them back where they were OEM and get longer springs to achieve the lift. Don't want to scare anyone but that there is a major catastrophe waiting to happen especially if you do any off-roading.

 

How dangerous is this for someone who doesn't do alot of offroading? It was my daily driver all last summer and e will be again this summer, I don't do allot of offroading and when I do its small ruts and trails more than big mud wholes

 

Would you recommend welding those drop brackets that the po put in place permanently to where they are bolted to? And did you also say the coil towers were bolted on? If so would you recommend them getting welded in place? The reason I'm asking is my brother is a professional Welder and could get the stick welder out and weld them no problem, just don't want to weld them if you think it would be a problem

 

Personally I would either take out the home made lift, or find some steel tube that would fit between frame and seat on the towers and radius arm brackets and bolt it in. If you weld it in place it still isnt seated against the frame except on 1 axis. And you make it much harder to remove if you ever decide to do it the right way.

 

That's a good idea thanks

 

So I looked under there again yesterday and turns out the po actually did put two pieces of cut to length square tube for the arms to sit on, thanks Again for all the help