baja-chris wrote:long time ago on my Ranger but I took it off and tossed it.
have seen them professionally done on broncos by top shops that did not cycle correct if you took the leaf pack down to a single leaf (and put a spacer in to maintain location) so you could cycle it, and the link itself caused bad motions as the rear cycled, the rear does not cycle in a pure arc with leafs because the length from the eye to the rear end changes as the spring arch reduces and yet the link wants to cycle in a pure arc, it does not grow to match what the leaf is trying to make the rear end do. the path along the leaf spring from the pivot eye to the rear end is not a straight line, it has arch to it and that arch changes as the spring cycles so the distance changes. not much and probably taken up by all the slop of stock rubber or poly bushings but when that slop is removed, there is nothing to take up this mismatch so it forces the spring to unnatural shape. if i wanted to run links, then i'd go back to rubber bushings and i'd rubber mount the links too so it would all be so sloppy that it would work (and might need links because of this). just my opinion, i'm sure there are guys with links who disagree so keep that in mind.
Right on, appreciate the extra insight.