Coil spring spacer question

DustinfromOhio

DustinfromOhio

TJ Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 27, 2020
Messages
173
Location
Wooster Ohio
Current setup
Zone 3” suspension lift that has sagged to 2.25” in front with winch/bumper
Rancho 5000X shocks
33” tires

Cycled front suspension today and I learned a lot but also have more questions than answers. with springs/bump stops removed I’m coming up with 3.5” uptravel limited by tire touching fender (0.75” left of shock travel) and 4.25” down travel limited by lower control arm touching axle side mount.

Question 1- If I add a 0.75” coil spacer (restoring my original 3” of sus lift) will that move my up travel to 4.25 and reduce my down travel to 3.5”?
Question 2- if I also add a body lift to get my fender out of way and bump stop appropriately, would the additional 0.5” of up travel leave me with a total of 4.75” up and 3.5” down?
Question 3- would those modifications improve or hurt suspension performance?

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  1. Does the spring have enough gaps in its coil to compress that .75“ spacer distance then yes. Do you want the shock to be the suspension limiter- no but I suspect you were going to the bump stops back in
  2. I think this does what you want which is get the bodywork out of the way- i guess that you are trying to level the ride height so it does not fix that.
  3. body lift does not affect suspension so no issue there other than taking the body work out of the suspension/tire clearance limiting piece of the puzzle. spacer returns the ride height back where it was but at minimum with the movement you have now and possibly gaining that .75 up.

there more experienced folks that can share what they have…experienced. the answer though, with the wider 33,s is too do both the body and the suspension spacer now for on the cheap- swap that front spring out if you got the coin.
 
Last edited:
1. Yes
2. assuming no other points of interference once the body is out of the way of the tire, adding a body lift (only) of at least 0.75" would get you to 4.25 up by letting you use the rest of your shock. If you only have .75 of shock left then you only have .75 uptravel to gain so I'm not sure there's any point of doing both.
3. Not likely noticeable, but in theory the spring spacers do reorient some things at ride height and the body lift only affects your transfer case shifter and your fuel filler hose. So you might want to check your caster and toe and you'll want to loosen and retorque all your control arm and track bar bushings.

If you were in Texas I'd say the body lift gets the result you're after but for less effort, but in Ohio you may have more corrosion concerns that would discourage that due to how painful it can be if you break a body mount bolt off in a torque box.

You can trim your axle mounts to help the clearance with the control arms. I did that myself to gain nearly 2" (with shocks to go along).
 
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freedom_in_4low said:
1. Yes
2. assuming no other points of interference once the body is out of the way of the tire, adding a body lift (only) of at least 0.75" would get you to 4.25 up by letting you use the rest of your shock. If you only have .75 of shock left then you only have .75 uptravel to gain so I'm not sure there's any point of doing both.
3. Not likely noticeable, but in theory the spring spacers do reorient some things at ride height and the body lift only affects your transfer case shifter and your fuel filler hose. So you might want to check your caster and toe and you'll want to loosen and retorque all your control arm and track bar bushings.

If you were in Texas I'd say the body lift gets the result you're after but for less effort, but in Ohio you may have more corrosion concerns that would discourage that due to how painful it can be if you break a body mount bolt off in a torque box.

You can trim your axle mounts to help the clearance with the control arms. I did that myself to gain nearly 2" (with shocks to go along).
Click to expand...

Thank you, mine doesn’t see much salt so I don’t think I’ll have rusty bolt issues. I’ll look into trimming the mounts, I hadn’t heard of that before.
 
freedom_in_4low said:
1. Yes
2. assuming no other points of interference once the body is out of the way of the tire, adding a body lift (only) of at least 0.75" would get you to 4.25 up by letting you use the rest of your shock. If you only have .75 of shock left then you only have .75 uptravel to gain so I'm not sure there's any point of doing both.
3. Not likely noticeable, but in theory the spring spacers do reorient some things at ride height and the body lift only affects your transfer case shifter and your fuel filler hose. So you might want to check your caster and toe and you'll want to loosen and retorque all your control arm and track bar bushings.

If you were in Texas I'd say the body lift gets the result you're after but for less effort, but in Ohio you may have more corrosion concerns that would discourage that due to how painful it can be if you break a body mount bolt off in a torque box.

You can trim your axle mounts to help the clearance with the control arms. I did that myself to gain nearly 2" (with shocks to go along).
Click to expand...

I’m curious, where exactly are you trimming the mounts???

I have all Savvy or Curry suspension with Johnny Joints, so one lazy benefit I don’t need to loosen bushing, ha. Good tip though.

I’m waiting on the Savvy Under Armor skid, and have a 1.25” BL and 1” MML ready to go with it, so when I get thag on, I’m going to be remeasurign everything to maximize, and you’re mention of getting 2” just on trimming axle mounts is interesting.
 
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cpwolf said:
I’m curious, where exactly are you trimming the mounts???

I have all Savvy or Curry suspension with Johnny Joints, so one lazy benefit I don’t need to loosen bushing, ha. Good tip though.

I’m waiting on the Savvy Under Armor skid, and have a 1.25” BL and 1” MML ready to go with it, so when I get thag on, I’m going to be remeasurign everything to maximize, and you’re mention of getting 2” just on trimming axle mounts is interesting.
Click to expand...

The back edge of the shock mount would sit on top of my LCAs before the shocks bottomed out.

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DustinfromOhio said:
My stock control arms do the same thing. How do your tube diameters compare to savvy’s with Johnny Joints?
Click to expand...

Never had my hands on savvy lowers but I would guess mine are larger. However, mine are also offset down to help precisely this issue so I wouldn't expect even a smaller arm to clear any better without an offset joint.

Mine are Rough Country retrofitted with Johnny joints in the frame end. The tubes are some of the biggest I've seen on a TJ suspension link.
 
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