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Well damn...

Oldtimer

Contributor
Jr. Member with Sr. moments
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
1,096
Loc.
Sunnyvale, CA
You will much appreciate the ride with new springs all around. The old style 2.5" lift springs are stiff and not fun in a daily driver.
 

DirtDonk

Contributor
Bronco Guru
Joined
Nov 3, 2003
Messages
48,743
With the rear lifted up on stands like it is, there might be a little bit of skewing of the results in the front. But it does still sound like your fronts have sagged. As expected....
So expect your front to go up at least another inch from where it is.

As for front-vs-rear heights, over the years, lift spring heights varied by vehicle and by the expectations of the designers.
Most pickup trucks sat quite high in the rear as a reasonable compromise between not being overly tall while the bed was empty, but not dropping too much when loaded. And still having springs that could actually move while driving!
Then, when loaded, they would compress to a hopefully roughly level stance and still provide some ride quality and safety. Broncos on the other hand, were never expected to carry super heavy loads. But then again, they might, because they were sold as utility vehicles that might do work for a company digging post holes (an auger was an option along with a PTO drive) or plowing (a plow was an option with a PTO drive) or rescue work and loaded up in the rear with whoknowshowmuch gear. Then there was family camping...
And they did vary in rear height (and a bit in the front too) right from the factory.

Some Broncos sat high in the rear even when fully optioned, while others sat perfectly level right off of the dealer's lot.
How someone lifted any Bronco previously, including yours, was up to the lift kit company, or the wishes of the owner. So a particular setup might have used the same height block in the rear, as they did the springs in the front. But with most company's "kits" back in the day, a 3" lift might have come with a 1.5" add-a-leaf or a 1.5 to 2 inch block. Carrying over the typical pickup truck mentality of using about 1.5 inches more in the front than the rear.
Rancho was a perfect case in point, where they used the very same coil spring as an F100/150 leveling coil at 1.5 inches, as they did for their 3" lift for the Bronco. No accompanying lift in the rear on the pickup trucks, and a 1.5" add-a-leaf for the rear of a Bronco.
And those front coils on a Bronco were STIFF!

How are all the vendor's springs designed nowadays? Hard to say, other than the fronts are the starting point and the most consistent. Whereas the rears need to be designed for the masses still.
With ride quality, safety, load capacity, and expected ride height at a given weight. A weight that nobody (usually not even the vehicle owner!) knows ahead of time.
Which is why, when setting up a suspension for a given custom Bronco, you often see discussions here, and recommendations from each manufacturer, on how to get the stance you want.
To this day, many Bronco owners like the "high in the rear" look, while others prefer the "sitting level" look instead. And still others like the race truck "down in the rear" look. Not many of those last ones I'd think, but they are certainly out there and have discussed it here on the forums.

So that leads up to the point of, if your truck sits too high, or if you expect it to sit too high based on your use and weight of the rig, you can remove 1, 2, or even 3, or 4 individual leaves out of the leaf packs.
Should you have to do that? Well, on a street car with a known empty-trunk weight, sure. But on a Bronco that's expected to sit where the individual owner wants it to? Well, I suppose we could all offer custom spring packs individualized for the buyer. Give us the specs (and hope they don't change) and we give you a spring pack expected to do just what you want.
But that could get time consuming, space consuming, and expensive at your end. So we sell what should work for most, expect the end user to fiddle with it to their heart's delight, and get the desired results.
Easy peasy. Right? Yes, insert rolling eyes here!

With your description, it's too hard to say yet what
 
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