That's more or less what I was thinking with flattening it out. Early attempts of that with some wood blocks to stabilize the ends and some large steel pipe with ratchet straps were too successful, it flattened slighty, but not nearly enough to even come close. Still off by quite a bit.1979bettywhite wrote:Upon putting in my rear Rusty's leafs, I had to use a piece of 4x4 (wood) on the spring, and then a couple ratchet straps around it and the spring to flatten the spring out enough to line up with the fixed mount location and the rear shackle.
Yeah cross brace the spring and jack it from underneath with the bottle jack till it’s flat enough to put the bolt in. It’s been about two years, but that’s the gists of it. I searched and found a picture of it somewhere. Probably google images or something if you need that it’s there.mas3773 wrote:OK, so if I'm getting this right, instead of having the bracing going the length of the spring, you're actually placing it beyond the length of the spring, between the eye and the tub? Then using a jack to compress the spring against it? Then either holding it in place with the ratchet strap, or getting it to just ling up as the board is holding it in a close enough spot to line up?
I'm getting a couple more search results of people mentioning wedging 2x4's in there and everything from bolting the axle up and lowering the weight of the vehicle on it to using ratchet straps. Haven't found any pictures, videos, or detailed description on it. Back at work, so I'll be continuing the search until I find a solid strategy. If it takes all week, so be it.
If I was going to do J10 cables, I'd go with the short wheelbase. The SWB J10 is still longer than the Wagons by a bit. The LWB J10 is 131" wheelbase which is way longer than you need for the cables.1979bettywhite wrote:Well, that's one way to do it I guess. Glad you got it in, and all your extremities are still with us! Yes, with the 4" lift on the parking brake lines get stretched pretty good. Enough so that you have to stretch them even more to get the pins on the axle to line up with the spring packs (hence the use of the ratchet straps again). On the ground and in everyday driving the parking brake lines are fine. But on the trail with good flex, it might be an issue.
You option is two-fold. Once is to cut off the parking brake mounting brackets on the frame. One accessible on the passenger side, and one is behind the gas tank on the drivers side. You will have to drop the tank for this one. This will free up the lines a bit to give you a little more slack.
I have also read that you can swap in long wheel base J truck cables in place of your current ones. Although I have not done this, I think this is the route I might look at in the near future.
Others may chime in as this is a common issue with the 4" lift.