Incommando

The most common problem is a loss of vacuum. The easiest permanent fix is to by pass the Central Axle Disconnect ( cad) and have the shaft locked together all of the time. http://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/free-front-axle-cad-bypass-91-writeup-38589/ You can also buy or fab a cable system to make it work. http://4x4posi-lok.com/app_jeep.html

I had no rubbing with factory rims and 1.25" spacers with 31x10.5's on an unlifted 2wd

From my experience helping someone convert an XJ all that you need to make it work is the hard parts. The "4wd" light on the dash may not work is all. You will also need to get your rear 2wd drive shaft shortened.

THIS! And not only does the bracket loosen but the mounting hole in the bracket wobbles out where the tie rod end goes into the frame-side mount . This can be kind of hard to detect with the weight on the vehicle. I have found this to be the cause of more than one case of "incurable" DW and so many do not even know to check for it. As mentioned steering stabilizers do nothing to prevent DW. They help to mask it until it becomes too severe or the stabilizer wears out. I must disagree with the unbalanced tires being the only cause of DW. Next time you have a vehicle with DW swap tires with one that does not and see if the DW goes away or if the DW transfers to the other vehicle when you transfer the tires. I have done this to disprove the tire balance story to someone at one point. Tire balance will not fix a wobbled out track bar mount, for example. Tire balance may contribute to DW but is not the only cause. Something as extreme as golf balls in a tire should be reserved as a last resort for truly large tires. Balancing of most good tires up to 37" or so is easily obtained by using good machine and a good shop. 265/75/r16 (32x10.5 +/-)is a very standard size anymore and modern balancing does a fine job with them. Heck the SO's '14 traverse has nearly that large of tire stock ( 255/55/r20 = 31.5x10 +/- ) and they balance just fine. Do you think GM is putting golf balls into their Traverse tires?

None of this will add lift. The easiest answer is to add front spacers. On a level service measure the difference from the center of the hub straight up to the lip of the flare. No jack up the front body until you have the stance that you want. Re-measure fromt he same points. The difference is the height that you need. Sometime switching to XJ shackles in the rear will lower it about .75" and that might be the correction you are looking for.

If you were not set on retaining a factory look an inexpensive option is to get 4 junkyard REAR TJ flares and bolt them on at all four places. This allows you to trim out the rust. it is just some the mounting holes and then bolt them on. You can gain a lot of tire clearance as well.

There are a couple of dozen threads on an SOA. I am in the middle of gathering parts for one. Doing it right with new parts (especially switching to long arms) is not going to be an inexpensive proposition. Decide what you want out of your jeep at the end point to chose the right parts the first time. You could either use spacers up front and blocks or shackles in the rear to level your stance. There are people both in favor and not in favor of running taller spacers on lift springs. Some suggest that as you flex more ( assuming that is why you want a long arm suspension) it just gives the front one more connection to move/shift and to let a spring or spacer pop out, for one thing. I have no personal experience with spacers on top of another lift. Here is my take on an off-road SOA. It is hardly the only way to go about it but it may give you some ideas and includes some parts sources for the best prices on decent parts that I could find at the time. I include current shipping charges and about all of the parts you would need. Some of the SOA recipes leave hundreds of dollars worth of required parts out of the soup. Skip to page 2 http://comancheclub.com/topic/28522-incommandos-4x2-redux/

I hope $500 MJ does not mind if I re-post a few of the pics: Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found

thanks and when ya aint sick as a dog do take pictures of the factory ones, i don't be puttin hooks on for a while so i've thought bout the hitch but i can't find one under 300 round here, Redwolf 2 minutes with Google and $143. Like the old song says "You gotta shop around" More looking and patience will save you some more. http://www.etrailer.com/fmr-1992_Jeep_Cherokee.htm 2 minutes 10 seconds on google = $118 including shipping http://www.hitchanything.com/Curt-31084-CURT-2-Receiver-Front-Mount.html?gclid=CKq93ZCApL0CFYhaMgodvF0AHg I have not seen them all but I am not really pleased at where a hitch-mounted winch plate places the winch on the front of the XJ's that I have seen using them. The winch sits pretty far forward and lower than some other options place it. That looks like a dangerous place for an expensive piece of equipment and it takes away from approach angle. I have seen pics of where people have taken after-market front frame reinforcement/bumper mounts and welded a piece of receiver tube scavenged from a junk yard hitch between the horns. This moves the receiver part of the hitch up several inches and places it behind the front license plate. The front bumper re-installs over the whole thing. As a plus you can have the front plate removable to gain access to your receiver. Another member, $500 MJ, has made a template and instructions for making a front tow hook set-up. it is an older post and some of the pics have been lost. I had a few saved and added them back in on pg. 2. http://comancheclub.com/topic/19584-500-mjs-front-tow-points/

Seems like a ton of work for a minor problem. Trip to PnP..remove front beam axle off of junker yourself on the ground with hand tools...cuss when bolts resist you...pay $100...take it home...remove front beam axle off of original MJ...cuss when bolts resist you...replace with junker front beam...dispose of original beam...hope everything on the junker beam works right because you know that the original one does and the original has the stronger spindle/serviceable bearing versus the somewhat fragile unserviceable unit bearing vs. $85 for a pair of spacers from Morris 4x4 ( $170 to match them all) and some lug nut twisting or getting lucky and your dust caps fit through the center hole... :brows:

yes you need spacers. 1.25" works but you will probably want to do the rear, too, as the front is already wider

iron rock offroad has a nifty set on their website under XJ parts http://www.ironrockoffroad.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=IROR&Product_Code=IR-XTHM&Category_Code=PFX

They would be fine for SUA but the longer ones not only combat spring wrap but the good ones allow you to adjust the axle location when going SOA

The factory mounts on the spring plates when SUA actually place the lower loop of the shocks a few inches below the axle tube IIRC.

I will add that such a swap would be interesting/eccentric...just not very sensical.

Ricer? Yes I do. Moderate horsepower in an economy car has always been a recipe for speed but a WRX is still an Impreza economy car no matter how you slice it. I know that the Impreza WRX people hate to admit that and the vast majority that I see go so far as the remove the Impreza badges to hide its humble 148 horsepower and slow as a dickens beginnings. The WRX and WRX STI are not models: they are merely option packages on an Impreza. As to the other: To keep it all Buick apply a similar turbo tailored to a 455 ( 7.4L ) and where would you be? Far far ahead of the 231 with 245 horsepower. The 455 would have greater HP without the turbo. In fact most naturally aspirated V6's found in today's family cars easily surpass the GN's output. The Pentstar 3.6 has a smaller CID & 291 hp in a Charger. Do you still want to crow about that 3.8 turbo GN? I wouldn't. The later 3800 supercharged engine made an underwhelming 220 hp. That there is no replacement for displacement is absolutely true as the same mods applied to the larger displacement engine will net greater gains. Period. The average 3.8 made less horsepower than a 4.0 and the 4.3 just got into the ballpark. The obvious answer is a 4.0.

There are many stock engines that push 300 hp that can be had for cheap. Yes you can throw enough parts at that 4-ricer to make those numbers but my observation is that longevity suffers and you can build more HP for less. I can post pics of my completely streetable Road Runner that can dip into the 10's and the engine is going on 12 years with no repairs. I have right at $5k in the whole car. Pie-in-the-sky daydreaming is one thing but many of these engines, like a rotary, have issues (as mentioned above) that make them pretty unsuitable for use in a jeep. Heck, the rotary made great power for its size but you had to wind it to 10 grand to do it and that got you poor even by V8 standards fuel economy and other issues. If it was so wonderful why didn't Mazda use it in all of their vehicles? The last version here, the RX8, was a horrible car with all sorts of problems. Use it as a 4x engine and use the 4x? I can't imagine why you would try. If that 200# is so important run alloy wheels, small tires, and lighten a few things and there is your 200# in a much more sensible weight reduction plan. Is speed that important to you that the weight of a passenger would make a huge difference? Then ditch the transfer case and front axle/driveshaft by doing a 2wd swap (reduces parasitic drag, as well) and leave the tailgate off. You can make about anything work with enough time, skill, and money. But unless your goal is to be eccentric why would you?

You can buy a 4.5" kit for less then a good SOA if you do it right and it is complete. Granted some of the 4.5" kits aren't ver complete either.

Just a note for someone reading this later: Decide what you want out of your truck before deciding on springs. If you use your truck as a truck and tow/haul with it then by all means use a heavier spring to aid in that. If you want a off-road truck where towing/hauling is of little to no importance to you in place of off-road performance than the lighter springs generally flex better. For those going SOA: Folks often remove the thick overload spring to adjust height. Remember that the overload is an aid in preventing axle wrap before you pull this leaf. There are those that will tell you that the overload leaf inhibits flex. While this may be true in an extreme compression situations remember that when SOA your springs have to be maxed (flattened) out before they even touch the overload. By then you probably have little if any flex left anyway and the overload leaf may save you from pretzeling your springs. You should probably have enough bump-stopping to stop the travel before it will compress the spring this far anyway. Research and decide for yourself but I think you would be doing yourself a favor to look into this before you make your decisions.

You can't fit a 6BT under the hood of a FSJ truck or Cherokee without major cutting so there is no way you will put one in a Comanche. That and the crack of the unibody as soon as you rest that hunk in there... :eek:

Yep. The overload doesn't came into play until...wait for it....the other springs are overloaded... :D

The side gears in a 29 spline carrier are physically larger than the 27 spline version. The axle shafts are larger. I think that you will find that the carriers need to be swapped as well.

They are all the same width but none will bolt in. The spring pads and shock mounts are different. For one thing XJ's are SOA & MJ's are SUA. You can easily adapt one if you can weld. Look for a'97-newer to get the stronger 29 spline version

None of the after market spring providers differentiate between the two bed lengths either. Looking like they are the same

Ordered the Barnes 4wd (great products & great service) simple axle swap kit as listed above. It is for a D44 as that is the kit that offers the axle tube options ( 2.75" & 3.0" ) most commonly found in MJ's. I used the 3.0" no-cost upgrade as that is what is needed for the 8.25 I am swapping in. Some people try to save some money by flipping the stock springs plates side to side and re-using them on the top of the spring pack. That leaves them just having to buy perches ad u-bolts. Although some people do it I do not recommend re-using U-bolts and being able to just cut off the old bolts instead of trying to get them off is a big plus where they use road salt. To re-use the stock plates you and their shock mounts you would really limit your flex as that would keep your shock length short. Ok for a street truck I guess but if that is not what I am after. Some report that the original u-bolt holes in the stock spring plates have enough wiggle room to use them with a 3" tube but I have not checked this as I am not going that route. The difference in tube & U-bolt sizes,especially with the much larger Barnes or RuffStuff u-bolts, may result in the need for further fabrication to the plates, anyway. The Barnes stuff is pure beef. Image Not Found Another advantage to this kit is that the spring pads are longer to combat axle wrap and are drilled to allow you to move the axle forward or back to fine tune its position. Short factory-style pads do nothing to help in either of these areas. You can buy just the better perches and they are only about $10 more than the cheapies. Decisions on these parts are good places to make good use of the $5 or $10 bucks you save here and there by shopping around.