rtyler8140

I was thinking about re-gearing in the near future. Stock I have a Dana 30 up front and 44 in the rear with 3.54's and 33's.....yeah she drags a bit. I was thinking about going to 4.56's and maybe going up to 35's next time I need tires. I know I will need a new carrier for the Dana 30, will I need one for the 44 as well? I guess I'm trying to gauge how much $ I am going to need to get this all done. My mechanic will do all the work for me at a reasonable price, I just wanted to know what all I will need parts wise so I can price that. Thanks in advance. :bowdown:

Depending on the condition of your leaf packs, your SOA conversion will yield different results. Id say a good average is 5-6", for some reason mine gave me 8.5". ZJ coils in the front will only give you an inch or 2 if I remember correctly (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). If you just want to clear 31's, you can just do a 2" budget boost (poly spacers go on top of your coils and longer shackles in the rear). Scratch that if your coils are no good. The ideal lift for 31's would be a 3" suspension that replaces your coils and also provides a new SUA leaf pack. In my opinion, your control arms will be fine will 3" of lift as well as your brake lines. I ran a cherokee with 4" of lift with stock control arms and track bar and it rode just fine and did great off road. Hope this gives you a little help.

Call me crazy, but I would really like to lift the front of the MJ up a little bit more to match the rear. The front is 6.5 and the rear is about 8 maybe 8.5". I know I am flirting with the need for long arms at this point and would need them for sure if I went with 8" coils up front. I was wondering if I could use control arm drop brackets instead of going long arm? At this point I have adjustable upper and lower control arms, adjustable track bar, sway bar disconnects, a drop pitman arm, and transfer case drop. If the drop brackets are suitable in this case, will I need a longer front driveshaft as well? Also will the rough country drop brackets for an XJ work for the MJ as well? Thanks in advance for your help. Oh and Pete M.....I will put gears in this thing before I lift it anymore :dunce:

Depends on if you want to hack up your fenders or not. If you want to cut your fenders, you can do it with no lift (but thats a lot of fender to cut away). If you are not looking to cut the fenders, I'd say 6.5" of lift will be where you want to go to run 33's with no rubbing. Also with that tire size you need to get a rim with more backspacing so you don't rub your tires on the inside.

Hrm...It's a 1987 4.0L auto short bed. My mechanic did the soa and said I could probably use a little bit longer driveshaft, but as long as I don't beat and bang on it off-road it would be fine. I will have to throw some new U-joints at it and see what that does. (Pete is gonna love this part)...Probably doesn't help matters that I'm running 33's with stock gearing. :doh: I think I might be putting some 4.56's in pretty soon. Also, just out of curiosity, I currently have 6.5" of lift in the front and about 8" in the rear. Could I bump it up to 8'" in the front without having to extend the front driveshaft?

I've tried searching to no avail. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there was a difference in length between a short bed driveshaft and a long bed driveshaft? I did a springover and have a slight driveline vibration and would feel more comfortable with a longer shaft. I was thinking if the long bed had a longer shaft, I could do that. If not, anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Awesome job so far man. I actually went and looked at that MJ, but I needed a DD and didn't want to dd something that looked that brown. hahaha Glad to see you are making her look right. Hey you can also say that your MJ took 2nd in a tough truck competition. ;)

POR-15 Seems to be the sealer of choice round these parts. You are a brave man my friend, I'm scared of rust. haha

Hey I scuffed mine with some sand paper. Be careful not to use too heavy of a grit as to not gouge the metal. Before: After:

If you are gonna drop $899, might as well buy this kit http://www.roughcountry.com/jeep_xj_6x.html I found it on ebay through Top Gunz Custom for $860 shipped. If you are able to do the spring over yourself then you aren't looking at any extra costs. Well you will have to get different shocks for the rear, but you will be able to sell the cherokee leaf pack and shocks. I'm very happy with this kit so far, it rides just like stock and has good flex.

Need to do something with your swaybar (disconnects are a good idea) and wouldn't hurt to put an adjustable track bar and drop pitman arm.

So I finally got to take her off road today. Shoe Creek is a pretty easy trail and close to where I live, so I went there. Got some 33's put on this morning and decided to break them in.

Welp I got her back on Thursday with the SOA all done. I actually got a lot of lift out of the rear. I think the rear is a few inches taller than the front. I'll let the pics do the talking. I'm sitting on 31's in these pictures.

Thanks Wildman :banana:

Hey fellas I was wondering if anyone knew what size brake shoes I would need for my comanche? I went to the parts store and they said that there were 2 different size shoes available. I'm sure I could take it apart and measure, but I was hoping to only have to take it apart one time. If it helps at all, its a 87 4.0, auto, chief with the dana 44 rear end. Thanks in advance.