salad

I keep forgetting your dealerships are reasonable down there... local one wanted $20 or $30 apiece.

playbass

Ouch. 8$ wasn't cheap, but I felt like it was worth it to have exact fit and not have to worry about reusing any of the old hardware which was rusted/weak.

salad

Yeah I ended up buying an entire box of bolts, bag of washers, and some nuts to do both front and rear at a local specialty hardware shop for $100 before tax. Kinda sucked.

ianpanderson

Thanks for all the help I've been soaking them all day with liquid wrench and I'm going to pick up a torch tomorrow

nanuk

any way to get an impact wrench?

they do amazing things. Where a continuous pull on a breaker bar will twist off bolts and nuts, an impact has the best chance of loosening

as for rust penetrant, make a 50/50 mix of DexronIII and Acetone, put some into a spritz bottle and wet it all down, do this a couple times a day for a few days, and if that won't let you get them loose, then heat is your friend

BillyBoy

The first thing to ask is... are you saving/reusing those leafs?

If not, they're expendable... cut them out. A sawsall, chorded, and a haf dozen blades will do it. Harbor freight has cutting {disk} tools for about 20$. A good investment for a jeeper.

Please! Please! Please! Wear eye protection! Those metal shavings can get lodged in your eye. Also, a nice pair of welding gloves can stop slips from becoming trips... to the ER.

Good luck.

peep

If your going with new leafs and cutting out your old ones, cut the old ones near the eye at each end. Then you can reuse them in the future as full length add a leaf inserts into your new spring pack.

salad

Exactly what I had in mind when I did the same. I also had to do that anyway since the bolt was rotating the entire bushing & eye...

peep

If your looking into an impact gun, I run an electric. My home compressor and surge tank is not large enough to maintain good power thru my air impact on parts that are totally stubborn. Also I've more lengths of electrical extension than I do air lines when I need the gun run out into the driveway or out back to the donor rigs.

Vincenza V

Without a badass air impact gun, you can cheater-bar and jack-it.

After the soak of PB Blaster, Put your deep socket on the bolt, then your breaker bar, then cheater bar. Position the socket/breaker bar so it it just under "parallel" with the ground. Then, instead of you doing the work trying to lift the cheater bar........preload the "slack" out of the cheater bar, place the jack (floor jack is best-it has a huge cup to grab the end of the cheater) under the handle that you removed all the slack from, and apply pressure to the jack. This helped me before I had air tools. Safe, slow, even pressure on the cheater bar.

DieselDaze

good advice.... but lets expound a little, I've seen a guy with a NASTY thick cut only his face around 5" long from using a cut off wheel... he was lucky it wasn't his neck, he'd be dead..

if you're under your jeep in awkward positions with a cutting wheel, the best insurance is a full face shield along with some neck protection....if a disk breaks ............................you'll be glad you had it

ianpanderson

I'm just putting new ish ones on I broke one and decided its worth the time to replace for my safety as well as other people on the road. And will and impact gun fit up there? Or are you all thinking more along the lines of an impact ratchet?

salad

Impact gun will fit fine onto the front leaf eye with an extension to clear the rocker pinch seam, however the lower quarter panel will interfere with the rear eye and shackle eyes

ianpanderson

What do you recommend for the shackle? That's what I'm having a lot of trouble with

salad

Are you just changing out the springs or are you replacing the shackle too?

If just the springs cut the bolt head off and it'll just fall out.

If you're trying to replace the shackle I hope you've got a decent breaker bar lol