axle flip on a international scout

krehel24

krehel24

<- and it begins!!!......
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Locust NC
I just bought a 78 scout and wanted to know if i can put the leaf springs on the top of the axle and still use the same springs. Any other advise would be nice
 
i think some of those scouts have the leaf perch cast into the diff. on the front. you may have to mofidy the diff. to put the perch on top.
 
To do it correctly is pretty hard. You will have to grind a flat on the diff casting. You will also have to grind the knuckles off, rotate them, and weld them back on to restore the caster angle. A Z-shaped drag link will be necessary to eliminate bump steer & other steering issues. The rear is pretty straight forward. This is the condensed version, for more in-depth info, surf over to binderplanet.com. There's tons of posts about it over there.
 
You should consider selling the Scout axles, and putting a set of GM 1/2 ton-1 ton axles under the Scout depending on tire size you want to run. The perches on the front axle will be on top, but you will need to build new mounts off the frame to move the springs to the correct location. That is what I would do.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Im with the guys above, just get a fullsize axles to put in there, GM will bolt it (scout has 31.5" perch width)....
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Dang, didn't know the spring perch spacing was the same. I just assumed it would be different. That is definitely a no-brainer then to go with GM FW axles.
 
thanks for all the input, but i am not going real crazy with this one. I have a 2year old that will be with us, so I realy am just trying to get some cheap lift. I dont mind cuting off the perches and re welding them, I have all the tools to do it, just didnot know if the springs would work being on top.
 
47CJ2A said:
To do it correctly is pretty hard. You will have to grind a flat on the diff casting. You will also have to grind the knuckles off, rotate them, and weld them back on to restore the caster angle. A Z-shaped drag link will be necessary to eliminate bump steer & other steering issues. The rear is pretty straight forward. This is the condensed version, for more in-depth info, surf over to binderplanet.com. There's tons of posts about it over there.
Click to expand...

I used Scout II axles to swap into my YJ when I went springover. It's not impossible, but it does involve some work with a grinder. As was mentioned, I ground down the passenger side of the pig where the old perch was to make it round (not flat as was said) To get the top perfectly flat would have been near impossible. Since I bought my spring perches from Summit Racing, they were pretty easy to work with and I placed it along side the ground off pig and traced the outline with a Sharpie. I ground it down to match and welded it on. Driver's side, just groind off the old and weld on the new. I did not change the caster angle since the Scout axle has 0 degrees of caster from the factory.

Now, let's talk about caster angles. At the time I did mine, there was a lot of talk on the net about how if you don't cut and rotate your knuckles to give you the sweet spot of 6 degrees caster, then you will have bump steer like crazy, you won't be able to drive it at all, your horse will die, your wife will leave you and your dog will have you arrested for tax evasion. None of that happened. You know why? Because 0 degrees of caster is not the Antichrist. If you figure, the Scout came from the factory with 0 degrees and what does this mean? It means you have to return the steering wheel to center yourself after you exit a turn. Nothing more, nothing less.

Did I have drive-ability issues with mine? Not that I could positively attibute to the lack of caster. I was running 35x15.50 Swamper SX's on 12" wide rims. Did it drive like a sports car? No - because I didn't BUILD a sports car. I built an off-road rig that I could also take on the highway.

Conventional wisdom tells us that with the lack of caster will also lead to excessive u-joint wear. Funny thing is that of all the u-joints that I broke (somewhere around 15), NONE of them were in the front driveshaft. They were all on the rear driveshaft and they just about all had to do with excessive skinny pedal use. I ran a CV driveshaft up front, but a standard one in the rear. By the time I saved up enough for a CV shaft in the rear, I got rid of the rig.

Now, I'm not saying that doing all those things are not a good idea. I'm just saying don't let the amount of work that some people do to build it the right way scare you off from starting your project. Just don't jury-rig stuff. Use good quality materials and weld the stuff up right. I've seen guys that cut and turned the knuckles, set up the caster right, etc. and then turn around and take a chunk of spring steel to build a spring perch because they were too cheap to buy some pre-made perches.
 
Im with the post above, it is not impossible, but can require more work to reuse the scout axle...

On the issue of caster though, as long as you have 0 deg or better caster you will be ok... The bg reason ppl tell you to rotate the kunckles are because (atleast in a scout) you will probly want/need to tip up the pinion some, therefore gettin rid of your caster, and causing terrible death wabble and eratic steering...

with that being said, if you are only offroad, and do not plan to drive on the street or anything high speed, you will probly be ok either way, as caster wont play that big a part at slow speeds...
 
goto ihonlynoth.com they sell a kit for full width with reverse shackle for gm to scout and it is a sweet set up. They also have alum. intake fo IH motors.
 
I am not familiar wit the scout axles but can't you box the side that has the cast and make the perch that way? I did that for a YJ (using Waggy axles) and you can even rotate the axle that way. We ground down some of the cast to make it flat, preheated and welded a flat plate on top. It worked good for him and then on the other side I made his perch out of 2" square stock and just cut the "U" for the axle so that it was the same height as the side with the Cast. I wish I had pics but I am in Iraq at the moment. He had to do flat tops for steering.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
if you are only offroad, and do not plan to drive on the street or anything high speed, you will probly be ok either way, as caster wont play that big a part at slow speeds...
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Highway speeds weren't really a problem for mine. I remember one time coming home from Uwharrie with no rear driveshaft. I had the front shaft only, had the front lockouts engaged and ran 75 mph to get home. Like I said, caster really has more to do with the vehicles ability to come out of a turn and return the wheel to center itself. If you don't mind "driving" your vehicle (i.e. turning the wheel back to center yourself after a turn or always keeping at least one hand on the wheel - a good idea no matter what vehicle you drive), then caster isn't all it's cracked up to be.
 
ManglerYJ said:
Highway speeds weren't really a problem for mine. I remember one time coming home from Uwharrie with no rear driveshaft. I had the front shaft only, had the front lockouts engaged and ran 75 mph to get home. Like I said, caster really has more to do with the vehicles ability to come out of a turn and return the wheel to center itself. If you don't mind "driving" your vehicle (i.e. turning the wheel back to center yourself after a turn or always keeping at least one hand on the wheel - a good idea no matter what vehicle you drive), then caster isn't all it's cracked up to be.
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That is correct for 0deg caster. If you were to rotate a scout axle more and therefore have negative caster, it would cause the vehicle to wander... You want 0+ deg if it is a street driven rig
 
On a scout if you are going positive caster go no more than six degress anymore than that and your drag link will hit the springs. If you o spring over you will have to go high steer setup. Found out all this the expensive way. They come stock with 0deg.
 
If you want to stay with stock width you can use a waggy front housing (essentially the same width) and reuse your scout stub/knuckles/spindles/brakes/etc. The waggy housing has better caster and pinion angles and is a little easier to spring over. They can also be had for relatively cheap. Then sell your scout front to recoup a little cash.

Good luck!
 
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