Second day on the road with the newly finished Zuke. Stumbled across this 93 with 92K on it!. Origional paint 3rd owner gem. Not a spec of rust on it. Quite a blessing. I've noticed that it sits a bit low in the front. Don't know much about the suspension on these little guys. Can someone take a look at what is under there and give me some solid advice as how to level this ride out? Kinda looks like the rear leaf's have a bit of a bow to them, and the front's are almost flat. Have no idea what is stock under there. It's a 93. Help me Obi-Wan! Measuring at the rocker ends, there is almost 2" of difference from back to front. FYI

Looks normal! 

If you get a second front spring pack you can steal a #2 spring. Then take your spring pack apart and put it in, that should give you the extra bit of height without effecting the ride to much. Or look at upgrading to some 1.5" OME springs all around.

Also, What's the easiest way to soften the ride up a bit?

try to find some smaller worn out shocks, lose the sway bar that one is sitting way to low in the front hitting your springs almost, let some air out of your tires, say down to seventeen or eighteen pounds.

Airing down your tires will make a huge difference.    When I take mine off road I air it down to 11 psi.   It's like taking it from a ruff riding jeep, to a Cadillac.

By far the easiest way to raise that front couple (no more than 2) inches is with a longer front spring hanger,that part that comes off the front frame and goes to the front of the leaf spring.You can order these for around $40 bucks!

Those don't look like stock springs to me.  They have too much arch to them and the spring clamps aren't the right type.
I would not reccommend putting longer front shackles on.  They will screw up your caster and the steering won't be right.
Adding a leaf to the front packs would be the best way to level it out, IMO.

As far as softening up the ride....like I said, it looks like you have aftermarket lift springs (which ride even worse than stock springs).  So you could either swap some stock spring packs on, or do one of the suggestions mentioned previously.
Stock tire psi for a samurai is 23.  That will help the ride, but will also lower your MPG, because of the increased rolling resistance of the tires.  Also, when I tried to run 23 in my samurai, I would get death wobble from the front axle, so I run them at 30 and it is fine.
You have to remember, you are driving a short wheelbase, leaf sprung vehicle.  It is gonna ride rough, compared to most any other vehicle.

There already are longer shackles up front and those springs are no way near stock.

The sway bar crosses over the spring? Mine mounts inside of both perches, that must be aftermarket too.

Bigred93,

Are you a Husker?

I would agree that the springs have way too much arch to be stock springs.  How much are you trying to level it out?

Rob

Bigred93,

Are you a Husker?

I would agree that the springs have way too much arch to be stock springs.  How much are you trying to level it out?

Rob

Hey Rob, Nope, not a Husker. My other rig is a F-350 Superduty Crew Cab (Red), and I also pull a 24' enclosed (Red). All big & red...Sorry!

I was just looking to level it out. This little guy won't see much off-road (for now). I drive it about 40 miles (round trip) to work. I was just trying to soften it up a bit, and I didn't think the nose being 2" lower was normal. I've been looking at a lot of pictures & didn't see that in many of them. With that, I thought someone might have started working on the suspension & didn't finish it. I don't know enough about these rigs to know if a suspention part is stock or not. There are a couple of guys with sammi's around here, but they own early 80's rigs & they don't know what should be under a 93. I can take some better pix if that helps. I kinda thought the ft sway was kinda weird (being right on top the spring pack). Also had a question about MPG. When you push these little guys up to 60+, does the MPG drop off? I'm getting 20 with a FI motor with 93K orig. miles on it. Seems kinda low to me. Just trying to see if I needed to tweak something to get her running a bit better, or just slow down!

  Also had a question about MPG. When you push these little guys up to 60+, does the MPG drop off? I'm getting 20 with a FI motor with 93K orig. miles on it. Seems kinda low to me. Just trying to see if I needed to tweak something to get her running a bit better, or just slow down!

When I run my EFI samurai up around 65-70MPH, I can still get upper 20s for MPG.  It has stockish sized tires on it though.  I also run 30psi in the tires.
What size tires are you running again?  Do you have lower gears in the axle or tcase?

Tires are 225/75-15

Not sure on the gears. Can I find it out without cracking em' open?

Also, might be a dumb question, but want to check the timing....What the heck is the "check connector"? Couldn't find anything about it in the shop manual. Supposed to short it out when checking the timing?? New to me.

Tires are 225/75-15

Not sure on the gears. Can I find it out without cracking em' open?

That is the size I was running (with stock gears). 
I'd guess you have stock gears, if you haven't changed them.  But if you want to check the gears......
You can jack up 1 rear tire, spin the tire exactly 2 revolutions, while counting the number of times the rear driveshaft rotates (it won't be an even number, so watch close, so you can see what the partial turn is).  Then number of dshaft revs will tell you what gears it has.  So if it has stock gears (3.727s), the dshaft will turn 3 and just under 3/4s times.
For the tcase gears, you can put the tcase in low, the front hubs to "free", jack both rear tires off the ground (or just one, if you don't have a locker/spool in the rear), the tranny in neutral, and spin the intermediate/input shaft to the tcase and see how many times you have to turn the intermediate/input shaft, in order to turn the tcase rear output shaft exactly 1 revolution.  If it has stock gears, it will take 2 and 1/4 turns of the intermediate/input shaft to turn the output shaft exactly 1 rev.

Also, might be a dumb question, but want to check the timing....What the heck is the "check connector"? Couldn't find anything about it in the shop manual. Supposed to short it out when checking the timing?? New to me.

The check connector is the small white square connector that should have a black rubber cap on it, that is located in the wiring harness by the battery.  You take a paperclip, or whatever, and stick in the end of the connector, in order to short the two wires together that freeze the timing (disables the electronic advance).  Going from memory, I think the two wires you short are the bottom ones, when looking at the connector with the little clip thing on the side pointing up at the 12:00 position.