4 Linking Frenzy

4 linking the front of my Jeep was an interesting experience, especially on my budget. This was the first one we have done, and I still haven't had a chance to finish it. The major things I need to accomplish now to complete the project is to finish welding plates to the frame, possibly remount the coil overs to account for the springs that were stiffer than anticipated, build a front driveshaft and probably a million other things I am missing.

The old leaf spring setup being removed.


Mocking up the axle and control arms. The best way to build the 4 link is at maximum compression, basically have the axle at the highest point it will be. By doing this you can help minimize clearance problems later down the road.


Next we tack welded some brackets on the axle so we could cycle the suspension and test the clearances. The overall goal here was to stretch the front end out about 7-8 inches and lower the front of the Jeep about 4-5 inches. The reason for lowering the Jeep is because it was too high and I want to run 42 inch tires on the road eventually.


Next we started finish welding the brackets onto the axle. This required a considerable amount of heating to bring the axle up to temperature. The axle center section is cast which is dissimilar to what we are welding to it. Heating the welding surface helps the weld penetrate deeper and creates an overall stronger weld. We also peened all the welds to relieve stress between the two metals. After all the welds were completed we wrapped the axle in a blanket to help it cool slowly.


My bro' lays down some seriously nice beads, roll of dimes anyone?


Testing out the flex on the Jeep... starting to look really nice!


Had to notch the frame pretty crazily to fit my coil overs. This area will get some more plates in the near future before the Jeep is put into use.


Here the coil over is with the dual rate setup, the heavy rate spring didn't work because it was simply too stiff. I ended up going with another setup but the Jeep is still too tall so I will have the move the coil over mounting points sometime.


Sitting level, we had to use a pillow block and dual steering rods to clear the coil over hoops. It actually turned out very nicely. We tucked the steering box up in the frame, moved it forwards and leveled it.


And here is the final photo to give you an idea of how much the front end was lowered. When we first started the front end was slightly higher than the rear.