OK, I don't know if I will get your questions answered directly, but Ted and I have been discussing doing a front SFA leaf spring conversion on his junk. I have seen these conversions done on XJ's (though never preformed the procedure personally) and I have done several rear leaf spring conversions on TJ Wranglers, so I have a pretty good idea of what is involved, although the KJ will be a challenge with what needs to be removed of the IFS to be able to finish the procedure. The nice thing about leaf springs is the simplicity. No complicated suspension link geometry from running coils, plus the price would be about 1/3 of setting up a coil suspension. I can find Waggy front D44's all day long here and the pick and pulls for $100 complete brake to brake. I know guys that will do a bench top gear install for $150. Cost of D44 gears, about $120, plus cost of master install/rebuild kit, ARB air locker, your looking at about $1200 just for the front axle, front shocks and leaf springs, maybe $100. I'll have to look up the part number, but on the TJ conversions I have done, I used the leaf spring frame mount brackets for YJ Wranglers for about $15 each. Just need to build custom front shackle hangers, which could be tied into the bumpers mounts. Plating the unibody is a real good idea. My XJ front bumpers come with the unibody bracing/steering box reinforcement plates built into the mounts. I have a lot more measuring and research to do, but on the XJ conversions I have seen, they use the Waggy front leaf springs they picked up with the front Waggy D44, and they use the lower control arm mounts to bolt the rear of the leaf spring too, then the leaf springs line up with the spring mounts on the Waggy 44, then they just line up the front shackle hangers. Very simple conversion for XJ's.
The biggest obstacle with the Waggy D44 front axle is the bolt pattern, being a 6 on 5.5, and the rear KJ 8.25 being 5 on 4.5. I don't remember the WMS to WMS on the 8.25, but I'm thinking it is just under 60". The front waggy D44 is at 61.5". The waggys are often confused with the FSJ. They are not the same. I forget all the years available off the top of my head, but the easiest way to distiguish between the waggy and the FSJ, is the waggys were four doors. Stay away from the 83-84's as they mostly had the vac disco D44's. The FSJ's looked like the waggys, but they were only two doors and had wide fender flares. They had the D44's as well, but they were 64" WMS to WMS, so considerably wider. The AMC20 rear axles that usually came in the waggys were considerably stronger that the old CJ 20's, but the waggys got a bad rap being called the 20 due to the weak design of the CJ 20's. The rear D44 would be a great swap in to match the front, but then you run into the problem of the rear suspension geometry setup, which would have to be done on the swap in D44, then you loose the whole point to doing a cheap front conversion. The cheapest way I can think of to match the bolt patterns would be to get rear 8.25 alloy shafts with the 6 on 5.5 bolt pattern to match. I do believe you can change some front D44 components to make the front a 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern, which I will dig that info up here in a little bit. As for steering, I will have to look more at how the KJ is setup before I can even think on how to set that up.
|