Just got finished swapping out all of my leafs, front and rear. Both ends had horrible spring wrap damage - you could look down either leaf pack and see more waves than pplotz's front yard.

Anyhow, for those that might not know how my truck's set up these days, I'm running stock rear Rodeo springs and stock front 78-ish Waggy leafs. I wanted to maintain some semblance of low-lift, supple/flexy response on the trail, but still not wrap up all over the place when I'm on the gas. So I called Matt at Indy4x (the first place to turn, IMHO...) and went with these for the rear:

OME Heavy Duty rear Isuzu leaf springs

I went with these for the front:

1976-1992 Jeep Wagoneer heavy duty front replacement springs

A full set of new springs? For about $800 shipped? Not too bad of a deal, really. Add on another $100 for bushings and ubolts? Done, done, and done.

All told, swapping everything out took me two full weekend days (with plenty of time left over in the evenings for beer). On first impression, the OME's are a little bit stiffer and definitely offer about 1" of extra lift. In order to maintain the same lift height (roughly) and keep from having to redo the track bar or pinion angle, I had to remove the last vestiges of my original Calmini lift kit that I first installed: the lift shackles. I honestly have no idea why I had a brand new set of rear stock shackles lying around...

The fronts are little bit stiffer, but not by much. I'm used to having flat fronts (originally had used/stock 1978-ish Waggy leafs from the junkyard) and these show just a little bit more arch. Might settle just a little bit, but I don't think by too much.

I went with the extra leafs on these spring packs so that I could remove the overload leafs if need be, but I don't think that I'll need to do squat to get back to what the Rodeo felt like roughly 4 years ago.

So? Those OME's are beautiful. Extremely well-made. A bargain at the prices that Matt sells them for - he's taking advantage of a large South African aftermarket, from what he told me - and he just diverts some of OME/ARB's shipments to the US. The JCWhitney stuff? Cheap. It works. It comes with bushings, which are a pain in the behind to find these days. All told, it was nice to have a bolt-in day, as opposed to how everything else usually goes on the Rodeo...

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

More pics here.

- mike

Looks good. Too bad that the background wasn't Moab in May. Missed you.

Thanks, Jim - had a whole bunch of other things not piled up this spring, I would have been there. Should have taken a weekend to do this work a long, long time ago...

- mike