Thanks man.
My front bumps are around 6mm big. Made for low applications, so really won't make much of a diff with them in or out since they are so small.
You sound like you have similar travel in the front to me though? I wonder if everything is different with a kingpin front end? You have a balljoint front?
I've got about 30mm'ish/1" travel for the bumpstop in front.
The other option is for me to run a smaller profile tyre, as I'm running 185/80R14s! But this won't help with guard gap.
As for engineers, yeah that must be australia you're thinking of. In New Zealand we have a 6 monthly check-up with a certified "warrant of fitness" inspector. Some of the rules include for suspension include no structural parts lower than 100mm/4" (unless certified - which is stringent and costs), and blocks can't be any bigger than 2". Whoops. :D
Someone else asked about how many leaves, have still got 3, to take another out seems a little dodgy to me. I have 3" blocks in there now though, and the pack has been reset/re-tempered 2.5" lower as well. So 5.5" in the back.
What I might do is take some photos tomorrow with the amount of travel I've got, to show what I mean.
Sparkle