This weekend I finally had everything come together to get my Old Man Emu lift on. I had a local cruiser head sell me a used OME lift that he didn’t like (thanks again Wes!
@wesintl) The only part of the kit I needed to add was rear coils. I went round and round on which ones to buy, but the gang at Cruiser Outfitters helped me land on 3” of lift for +400lbs of weight with the OME 864’s. I think they’ll be perfect once I get the drawers and fridge in the back. The weight of the Slee rear carrier already ate up my 30mm spacers I had in the rear. I bet I am at the 400+ by the time I add the tire carrier, jack, rear drawers (loaded) and the Fridge… plus add our family of 5 camping gear and I am sure we will hit it when loaded up.
There are a lot of good write up’s here on mud that I used, as well as, Slee Offroad's detailed instructions with pics, so the install went pretty easy. I did hit everything with PB blaster for a few days before starting the install but this is a Colorado western truck with very little if any surface rust. The whole thing took a buddy and I about 7 hours, with a few hiccups along the way.
Here is the Kit, it is the standard Old Man Emu 2.5" lift with the addition of 864 Rear Coils that give about 3" of lift with added weight. Note the 22mm flex head wrench... I wouldn't attempt the rears without this tool. I got mine off eBay for about $8 bucks. Totally worth it.
Next get the rear up as high as you safely can, drop the sway bar end links where they meet the sway bar... 1 bolt per side. That'll help you get the droop you need to pull the springs.
Here you can see the sway bar disconnected, the spring removed and the shock pulled out. You can't see that the floor jack is on the other side raising up the opposite axle. When done like this, the springs fall right out. Just watch your brake lines and diff breather hose, they can get taught, we didn't need to remove them to get the droop we needed. To remove the shock we used the ratcheting wrench on the top nut and then turned the upper shock by using a big ol' pipe wrench... this gave us the purchase we needed as a strap wrench kept slipping.
Here you can see our setup to remove each side's springs. The 100's really flex well, in the rear, the front.... not so much.
Here is the new 864 compared to the OEM Stock spring, the coils are thicker and they're are a few more wraps per spring, but they are about the same height, the lift is obvious attained through the spring rate and how much the springs compress under weight. The tapered end is the bottom, these are upside down in this pic.
) I tend to pull cable to move tree's more than other rigs.
