Lowering Questions .......

Lowering Questions ............ And I'm back ...... I finished up my degree, got a sweet job, and finally have some cash to finish my Comanche. Its running like a champ, the replacement bed is put on and interior is done.

Question ...... will stock XJ shackles fit on the MJ and would that be an ok way to lower it? .... (would it change the drive line too much?)

for the front I see that people use rear TJ, or rear ZJ, or WJ springs? Does this work and what drop would I expect.

Also I got rid of my DD volvo, but was thinking of snagging a front air dam off of an older 740, has anyone tried to mate up a volvo or some other front end to get that "street" comanche look.

Thanks,

Andrew

XJ shackles will fit, and should drop you down roughly an inch. Should be fine as long as you don't flex it out much after that, as it is physically possible to flip an XJ shackle on an MJ spring.

ZJ rear coils on your MJ should drop it 2 inches + depending on which motor you have. Only MJ I ever saw it done on was a 2wd 4 cylinder, and it settled down to about 2 inches. Make sure you do a toe alignment after any height change on the front.

I haven't tried it yet, but you should be able to drop the rear by replacing the second and third spring leaves with the flatter leaves out of an XJ spring pack. Or cut the XJ main leaf to the same length as the MJ second leaf and go from there.

Dunno if he's still lurking around here but "Andy in PA" had a lowered 2WD MJ a few years back. Be careful in the front -- if you get too much drop the oil pan is an interference fit on the front axle.

I'm with Eagle on bastard packing the rear springs instead of using XJ shackles. You will have to drill out the center holes a bit if using XJ leafs, though, as they use a smaller center pin.

Another way to drop the rear would be to use blocks. As our trucks are spring under, adding blocks will lower it the thickness of the block. I'm not sure if you want to keep any load capacity, but you might loose another 1/2" or so by removing the overload spring froim the pack. If you want to go radically lower in the front you may want to look at the worldsfastestcomanche thread. I think he took two 2wd front beams and cut the center out of one and stacked it on top of the other with the ends cut off to make a sort of dropped beam front axle while keeping original style front end geometry for the control arms. This would take a lot of fab, but I guess it depends on how far you want to go. Good luck and keep us updated!

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12248

WFC thread ^^^

Blocks can be a bad idea. Steel ones are difficult to find and aluminum ones will break over time. I had a set on a Cherokee for about a year until I noticed a crack in one so I removed them. After I had the u bolts off, one fell apart into two pieces, the other one into three.

Interesting on the drop axle stuff. .......... I'm not a block fan and will probably do some leaf swapping, I have a extra set of XJ springs amongst some other stuff.

I'll take some pix of what I'm working with so you guys can get it out.