The fro still lives today! As far as springs, the rears are 63" Chevy springs out of a 2000ish 3/4 ton pichup. These springs are a bit softer so I am going to mess around with the upper and lower mounts to get the shocks as vertical as possible. The fronts are pretty sagged out from the combination on SOA configuration and the added weight of the ARB bumper and Warn 8274 winch. I had another set of fronts so I picked up a set of long Add a Leafs from a buddy and installed those. I *think* that should help out with all the weight up from while still maintaining a comfortable ride and flex.
The driveshafts are both double cardans. The rear shaft is a custom deal that a driveshaft shop made up and the front shaft is a retubed OEM shaft.
In the first pictures I posted up, it shows stock springs with short add a leafs in the rear. The front springs were stock with short add a leafs and a 4+ shackle reversal. Keep in mind this was only days after the SOA so the springs had not 'settled' yet. At this point I did not have the front axle cut and turned yet, so when Jeff at Hangtown 4wd in Diamond Springs did the c+t he removed the front add a leafs to bring it down a bit. Also note the rear shackle angle is close to 60-70 degrees which was less than ideal. I drove on this setup for a year+ and was not impressed with the performance of ride or flex in the rear due to the short add a leafs. Don at FC Fabrication did the install because he had done a few chevy conversions on wagons and is an all around excellent fabricator.
The consensus was that 3/4 ton springs are ideal for wagons because they have an extra leaf. Chevy springs are estimated to give about an inch or two of lift, however I already had a less than ideal shackle angle so Don simple set it to a more desired 40-45 degrees. Overall I would say that the springs lifted it about 1/2 in the end.
As far as capacity, I think they are much better than stock, I'll go grab a picture to show you what I mean. When the wagon gets loaded up (i.e. a bunch of stuff for a little party on the sand this weekend) the springs sit down on the helpers and it rides like a Caddy!
Right back at ya man, I learned a lot from you guys building up your 60's back a couple years ago. . . lemme know if you ever make it out to the west coast.
Here are a few more shots of the springs to help with what I described above.
Here is a shot of the current configuration of the shocks. The one downfall of having a 4 leaf 63" spring is the softness, so I plan on utilizing more of the dampening power of the shock by mounting them as vertical as possible.
Also, here are some pics of the sleeping shelf after I modified it a bit,
And of course you can't own a cruiser without having all the 'extras'
