Pete M

What are the widths and wheel bolt patterns?

what did this AMC-20 come from?

gotta link?

fired up the fleet today. well, most of the fleet anyway. discovered that the gas tank in the 88 is mysteriously empty. hooray for rust. :fs1:

the driveshaft under your 88 should work, though it'd be tight and you should check clearance before driving all over the place. i'd plan ahead and at least find a shop that can shorten a driveshaft for you, just in case. If you can get away without shortening, it'll be beneficial for the lift. It'd be best if you can wait til the lift before swapping in the axle, if that's possible. new Mopar perches are like 15 bucks at the dealership and any muffler shop can burn them on for cheap. :thumbsup:

any plans for a height adjustment?

is your truck stock height?

If it turns out to be another rout, there's always the puppy bowl. :rotfl2:

this is for a Renix Jeep, but it should be very similar to your HO.

If it helps at all, Comanches and Cherokees are identical in this aspect. :thumbsup:

Assuming no one thing is noticeably bad, I'd probably start with a pair of WJ lower control arms and new shocks if yours are at all old. :thumbsup: adding a lift only exacerbates the conditions that allow DW to occur.

our trucks rot from the inside out. pull up the carpet as best you can on every edge and check for moisture/rust/bad smells. Then get down on the ground and peer straight up in front and behind the rear tires to check between the bed outside wall and inside wall. that's where dirt/moisture get trapped and that's where the rust starts that rots out the bedsides. look for rust on the fuel tank and everywhere else underneath. an otherwise good looking truck can start rusting from below if the owners only ever washed the paint up above. as for rockers, that one is hard to check. I guess you could tap them to see what they sound like. always bring a fridge magnet to check for bondo. the magnets will stick to steel, but not to any bondo'd areas. oh, and loo at the bottom of the door seem for rust, and look at the hinges to see if they've started pulling away from the body.

Do you still have the stock lower control arms?

good call. i forgot about the codes. :cheers:

Not without a bunch of fab work. the floors are very different, with XJ floors being flat and MJ floors sloping up towards the middle of the truck. You might as well clean up your current set and weld a washer to the bottom to bring back the structural integrity. Or post up in the classifieds if you haven't already. MJ buckets and benches both use the same floor brackets.

Good point. :thumbsup: on that note, while I highly recommend popping off the cover for the axle you plan to purchase (so you can look for metal shavings, missing teeth, or like the one I found that apparently was in a side impact and the axleshaft was pushed into the carrier and cracked the center pin) that can quickly become a overwhelming and super-messy chore if there are 20 explorers in the yard. so here's what I do in the event the tags are missing. When you spin one axle shaft and the other side rotates together at the same speed in the same direction, it's a good chance it's a posi unit. When you spin one axle shaft and the other side rotates the opposite direction or if the other side is stationary and the driveshaft turns, it's a good chance it's an open unit. to determine gear ratio (assuming that the driveshaft turns freely or is missing): If the unit is posi, rotate one axleshaft around one complete revolution and count the number of times the driveshaft or driveshaft flange rotates. just over 4 times is 4.10, 3 and a half times is 3.55, etc. If the unit is open, keep the other axleshaft from spinning (a helper, or maybe a box wrench hung on one of the wheel studs) and rotate your side around twice and count the rotations of the driveshaft. oh, and for the 8.8 specifically, do your darndest to grab the calipers. the core charge at the parts store is insane. :ack:

why on earth would they not sell half a kit? :hmm: what if I wanted to 4-link the back of my XJ? :dunno:

how 'bout some pics of your truck? whole 'nuther thread there wahoo. :D

more will show up. typically for 1/3rd that price. :thumbsup:

95+ have disk brakes. bring a good flashlight and something to clean the crud off the tags. :thumbsup: Oh, and posi units will typically have a second tag on the diff cover. While you're at the yard, you'll need the proper flange adapter. I think it's the crown vics and areostars (ones equipped with their own versions of the 8.8 at least) that have them. Get the 4 bolts too. they are metric and super strong. failing that, the dealership is the place to get them. don't even bother with a hardware store. chances are real slim they'd have metric bolts strong enough.

nope. just unplug it. :thumbsup:

All explorers have 31 splined axleshafts. 95-01 have disk brakes. The lug pattern matches your Jeep. width is 5/8" more narrow on each side. Pretty much all other 8.8s should be avoided. and IF you can break a shaft on an 8.8, I just might hire a helicopter and bring a spare out to you. :D

I only use whatever gas is cheapest and/or on my side of the road.

I put a bit of grease in there before installing the new seal

I would do a spreadsheet. whole lotta cut-n-pasting, but it'd sstraightforward and would result in more manipulable data should some other reason pop up in the future.