Old Man Emu spring install

This is the beginning of the overhaul of the suspension on my 09 CE. It's got 193k hard miles on it, and one of the leaf springs was broken at the front eye. 4 Wheel Parts had a set of Old Man Emu springs, so I decided to go with those instead of stock. Their shipping price was amazing, so it only came out to about $150 more than stock springs would have been anyway. I replaced the shackles, bushings, bolts and U bolts while I was back there. I'll be swapping out the blown red CE shocks with Bilsteins soon.

I wanted to throw up a couple pictures of the springs because it doesn't seem like there are any out there. All the photos online are just generic stock photography.





One of the things that confused me is the front of the spring. These were advertised as having a military wrap, and this is something else. I couldn't find any explanation for this style of spring, so if anyone's got any input, I'd love to hear it.





(The driver's side bolt was seized in the bushing. So I had to cut it out)

The other unanswered question was ride height. 4WP listed them as 0.75" lift. Some internet comments said "way over two inches". Unfortunately I forgot to measure the height before I started. But compared to my stock, worn out 08, the rear of the 09 is currently sitting at ~2" higher. About 26" from hub center to fender lip. That's with a Gobi rack and Thor bumper on it. I've got the front set at 23.25", so there's an obvious rake to it. I hope it settles out at least a little bit. It's only been 4 days though. I'm tempted to throw some sand bags in the back to see if I can help it along a little.

Ride quality is pretty decent. It seems better than it was, but that could just be the placebo effect. It should be pretty nice once I get shocks and an alignment.

I bought a set of these when I did my SOA. Nice springs. Like you said, there is more than the advertised .75” lift and put a bit too much rake for my liking. I put the factory springs with new bushings back in. I thought about frenching some replacement shackle hangers into the frame to get rid of the extra height but may just sell them and get the factory height OMEs.

I believe this is called a two stage leaf pack. In the link below it lists OME leaf spring features, but there's a disclaimer that says not every feature may be included. Looks like these don't include military wrap. https://arbusa.com/old-man-emu-4x4-suspension/springs/

• 
  [*=left]Two-stage leaf pack featured on most rear springs for optimum comfort. When unladen, the vehicle is largely riding on the primary stage, with the secondary stage providing additional support when a heavy load is added

Jeff V. said:

One of the things that confused me is the front of the spring. These were advertised as having a military wrap, and this is something else. I couldn't find any explanation for this style of spring, so if anyone's got any input, I'd love to hear it.

Click to expand...

Need to look at my Alpha build thread, pics are in there of the OME springs and commentary on them: https://www.hummer4x4offroad.com/fo...-s-Alpha-build?p=226476&viewfull=1#post226476

They are rated +0.75" with a rear arb bumper and an arb fridge inside.
The Stock height at the rear is 24.5", I got 26" when I first swapped in the arb springs. They are harsher than the oem ones but that is to be expected with a higher rate spring.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

Thanks for the comments guys. It's all very helpful. I'm disappointed with myself that I didn't find JPaul's build thread. Google-fu is usually something I'm really good at.