Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Suspension & axles: (you are here)
Page 3: Other mods
Page 4: Wheeling pics
Page 5: Miscellaneous junk
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My BII came with the wimpy little Dana 28 under it (build date before 11/'89)
Fortunately I had a Dana 35 on hand to take it's place, along with a disc brake 8.8" from an Explorer to replace the smallish 7.5" in the rear.
Both axles were stuffed with ARB lockers and 5.13:1 gears.
The front axle is mounted on a pair of Rancho axle brackets (reinforced) along with home-built extended radius arms made from the stock arms using 2", .250 wall DOM tube. The frame brackets are fabbed out of 3/16" CR plate steel.
Instead of TTB lift coils which tend to be ridiculously stiff, I used Skyjacker coils for a Jeep XJ or ZJ Cherokee (#JC60F) . These are fairly close to the same physical diameter of the stock coils and fit the stock mounts with minor modifications. The weight of a Bronco II works quite well with the 240PPI rate of the coils and actually allows the suspension to FLEX a bit. A 2" bodylift & generously cut fenders gives the tires some additional room for movement.
These coils are normally good for 5" lift on a Bronco II. I raised the stock coil buckets up 2" (along with adding a set of F-250 shock towers), which results in a net suspension lift closer to 3", which matches up nicely with the 2.5" Rancho drops.
The Skyjacker coil next to an old 3" Rancho XJ coil I had used previously:
Both are around 240PPI, although the Skyjacker coil seems to be much better made (so far no sagging over time like I experienced with the Ranchos).
Bilstein 12" travel shocks
The added flex necessitated widening of the beam window (along with trimming the radius arm bolts inside the beam housing) so the shaft doesn't bind up inside there (this has the potential to bust a shaft quicker than you can say "snap!"). The center u-joint yoke is clearanced for added droop travel as well.
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Steering seem to be the one area of greatest concern when building these things (unfortunately I see this overlooked all too often by others building them). If the linkage geometry isn't correct, very strange things can happen (especially with the flexier springs).
I tossed out the stock "inverted-Y" steering linkage, and put a centerlink-style setup on it. I used a Superlift Superrunner linkage which I beefed up in a couple places, and dropped the centerlink down so the tierods would be close to horizontal at normal ride height (the tierods are supposed to be parallel with the axle beams at static ride height).
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"Center" limit cable to keep the frontend from rising up as much on steep climbs, while still allowing for full flex. It runs over the frame through a tube from one side to the other. The cable can easily be released at the axle to allow full droop travel for when the going gets fast however.
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For the rear suspension, I used a set of '00 Explorer leafs, along with extended shackles.
I added the main leaf (eyes cut off) from the old BII springs as a 2nd leaf to give it a bit better support with the 35" meats torquing against 'em. The thick overload leaves on the bottom are inverted to allow more flex.
Other odds & ends:
Warn manual hubs (the stronger "Jeep" hubs, not the wimpy stock-replacement ones)
Spicer 5-760X axle u-joints with full-circle retaining clips
Girdle rear diff cover with skid plate
Extended shock & coil mounts
98" wheelbase (stretched about 3" rear, 1" up front)
Misc. buildup pics:
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I'm occasionally asked why I haven't swapped a straight axle under there. I'm not sure the need, this TTB junk seems to work fine already (and for much less cost, too--- it's all pretty basic stuff under there... just modified a bit is all).
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