John Nutter

I had a good day at the swap meet yesterday, I bought a 3 series True Trac for a Dana 44 with reverse rotations 3.50 gears attached for $50. I need to change the gears because I'm going install it in a standard rotation front Dana 44.

Editors note: this modification is not legal for U.S. street vehicles. Regardless of the outcome it should be used only on off-road vehicles and not on emmision controlled vehicles.

Don't bother with the shackle reverse if you are going SOA with flat or nearly flat springs. I know the next question, 'Why Not go with a shackle reverse?', I get it at least 3 times a week since my SOA article came up on ORC. It will answer most question about SOA except apparently why not to use a shackle reversal with flat arch springs.

Over the years there has been much written about shortening axle housings, but it has been rare to ever see anything written by a shade tree mechanic (or is that a Shade Tree Howler Monkey?).

After running the same spring under axle (SUA) setup with a shackle reversal for years, Mike Knorr was ready for a change. His set up performed well, but the springs were getting tired and Mike wanted something that took performance to the extremes. A spring over axle (SOA) conversion was the obvious solution, but Mike didn't want to give up his shackle reversal. This article is the first in a two part series on extreme suspension modifications. It covers what went into his new front suspension including reworking spring mounts, a long travel driveshaft, military wrapped spring packs, custom shock towers for the longest RS9000 shocks available, and high clearance steering with heim joints.

Slippery conditions can turn a normally easy trail into one that is nearly impassable. Snow is an obvious cause, but on certain soil types a rain storm can turn the surface of the soil into something resembling wheel bearing grease.

There has been a lot of discussion about high clearance steering systems for Jeeps latley. High clearance steering has many advantages such as reducing the chances bashing your steering into a rock, eliminating the need for a dropped pitman arm, allowing straight linkages to be used without spring interference on SOA equipped Jeeps and allowing stock steering geometery to be maintained even on highly lifted Jeeps.

The sage Jeeping guru Jefe once said "Eventually, every serious rock crawler will go spring over." The virtues and faults of SOA have been debated many times, but eventually all discussions come to the conclusion that going SOA is the only way to free up the very significant space under the axle tubes where the spring packs normally reside. The only real disadvantage of going SOA is the possibility of inducing wheel hop, but as I will explain later wheel hop is easily controlled. SOA has been used by many manufactures on both front and rear ends, and these OEM SOA setups prove that it works well.

After running the same spring under axle (SUA) setup with a shackle reversal for years, Mike Knorr was ready for a change. His set up performed well, but the springs were getting tired and Mike wanted something that took performance to the extremes. A spring over axle (SOA) conversion was the obvious solution, but Mike didn't want to give up his shackle reversal. This article is the first in a two part series on extreme suspension modifications. It covers what went into his new front suspension including reworking spring mounts, a long travel driveshaft, military wrapped spring packs, custom shock towers for the longest RS9000 shocks available, and high clearance steering with heim joints.