Thanks. that helps and I will try and experiment with this option. I already have a .75" spacer on my front drive shaft, so will remove that and get a 2" spacer made.

I have also shared the picture of the Low Range 2" lift SPoA leaf set and asked few people if that can be fabricated here.

.....  For my lift I built a folding front shackle system and kept the stock shackle length, you could just as easily just put a new shackle mount a bit further out on the frame. 

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Can you share the drawings/pictures of this? That will help me to fabricate this.

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I was hoping with all of those Willy's I see running around there might be some old Jeep CJ's as well...

Yeah, but finding parts for them is a pain. Let me see, but the rear leaf set of a CJ has some 8-9 leafs.. So how many from that would need to be taken?

You would probably only need 4 or 5 leafs, if that. 

For my folding shackle we made it pretty simple.  Basically it is just a couple pieces of 1/4" straight stock designed to slide a mounting point forward the 3" needed for the longer spring.  Below is a quick drawing of the top half, the second lower half is just a heavy duty shackle.



You will need a way of keeping the shackles from being able to fold over backwards as well.  On the passenger side I have a plate that comes across and doesn't allow it to flip over.  It works ok but the drivers side one is better.  Two braces, one on top of the upper half and one on top of the shackle that will bump into each other just before the shackle folds backwards.  You can see both if you zoom in on the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/CrawlersNW/ReiterTrailsMay309#5331820303604244882

Another item is to make sure that there is something for the fold to sit on.  I extended the frame 3" to fit the bumper and the winch, the upper shackle sits right underneath the new section of frame.  The system works pretty well, but if there is any vibration in the front end the shackles allow it to really get working.  I also had to hack up the fender when I switched to the 33" tires.  For a road going rig like yours I would just look at re-locating the front shackle mount forewords 3 inches.  Then again, it's pretty wicked when it opens up. 

That seems reasonably simple  . Might just go with this approach. So, to again confirm, NO changes were done to the rear mounting of the front leaf?

This is what I plan to do. Please check if I am on correct path:

1. Use STOCK rear leafs. Remove the over load leaf & add 1 or 2 front leafs to the bottom of the pack.

2. Use the rear mount AS IS.

3. This will move the axle by 1.5" in front. For that use a spacer for front drive shaft. (No changes required ANY WHERE else)

4. Use the folding shackle as you have outlined.

Is that all?

This method i like as this allows you to go back to stock also. No alteration that can't be reversed  :-)

That is it exactly, and the fact that you can go right back to stock if it doesn't work out is the reason why we did it that way.  Make sure you have a place for the top of the folding shackle to sit on, my base was an SJ-410 so the springs sit directly underneath the frame where yours are slightly outside the frame. 

Sometimes I do get a bit of chatter when running down rough roads as it is metal on metal, putting a block of rubber or polyurethaan for it to sit on would probably fix that.  I'm not sure if sliding the axle forward would introduce any bump steer with your Z-bar steering setup but you should be ok.  I'm running half of a high steer setup on my rig and didn't have to change anything with the steering.

The setup we built works great, but you can expand on the design if you want by adding bushing to the pivot link if you wanted.  It's all up to how far you want to run with the idea.  I can try to get some extra pictures on-line if you want.

.....Make sure you have a place for the top of the folding shackle to sit on, my base was an SJ-410 so the springs sit directly underneath the frame where yours are slightly outside the frame. 

....I can try to get some extra pictures on-line if you want.

Yeah, some more pictures will help. I have decided to go this route and will get this done in next week or so.