Incommando

I think you miss understood my post......it was $448 all in....that is the lift and the shipping combined not just the shipping.....the shipping was +/- $100 I will post again when it is done.....as of now the rear is on.....i did it solo in about 2 hours.....i installed the add a leaf without removing the top leaf from the xJ..... :thumbsup: I was comparing my price including shipping shipped at $328 ( american) including a too high shipping cost of $68 versus your price including shipping at $448 ( American?). Your shipped price is $120 more than my shipped price. I know part of your $448 was probably duties but that $448 is about $180 (shipping plus duties??) more than the $265 price for the kit on the website. http://www.rustysoffroad.com/jeep-suspension/jeep-suspension-lift-kits/xj-cherokee-84-01-jeep-suspension-lift-kits/rustys-xj-cherokee-3-add-a-leaf-kit.html

Alas too many people who claim to "love their country" are woefully misinformed and living on propaganda. That is true of both sides of the story. But if I heard one more mis-informed goofball talk about that duck dynasty actor having his "right to free speech" violated I was going to scream.

I volunteer to assist with "international relations" Funny how they count standings in the Olympics...it makes about as much sense as how they award the venues..... Total medals don't count. We are tied with the canucks for golds but they have two more silvers while we have 4 more bronze. We also beat their medal totals but they are listed one ahead off us. Hmmm... If they assigned a value to each medal (3-G,2-S,1- B) than we would be tied for 2nd with 28 each to Germany's 29. The tie breaker, most medals, would go to us. As it stands we are 5th and 6th despite our having tied the Ruskies for most medals and Canada in a 3-way tie with the Netherlands & Norway for 2nd. Oh, well. It will be decades before they catch us in total winter olympic medals at this rate!!!! :banana:

Winning on a disputable goal as time expires is hardly mopping a floor with an opponent. Good game though.

Just for giggles I checked this kit out. Rusty's wants $68 to ship this to Ohio. That seems really high as Zone will ship a full 4.5" kit with lower arms for $49 & NTWonline shipped me 4 32x11.5's for $49,as well. But at $328 shipped for the Rusty's kit versus $448 for international shipping... Very few of your lower priced kits will come with an adjustable track bar. Most RE kits are higher end and the price shows it. I have gone the re-drilled route and know others who have. I have never had a problem or heard of one personally.

I noticed that these are being mentioned for use with a lift and also an SOA in one case. Lifts and larger tires often mean off-roading. Shocks of this nature usually do not help off-road and often effect flex. Just a heads up.

I like that idea but I already have the new tank. I am just debating fabbing a skid plate versus re-locating it.

I have found that having someone to push the tire in while I removed or installed the clips helps. Good price but I had an Aussie fail in my 8.25 under the KJ. One of the pieces shattered. I know that one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch but they would not warranty it. I had to send all of the internals back to them and they said I had too much center pin play from wear ( the jeep had less than 20,000 miles on it) and was an "unhardened" factory piece. They said that I should have bought a new one when I got the locker even though nothing in their ads/ordering process told you to. Granted that was Torq-Masters making the decisions and not Lokka. I liked it up until it broke. I had a 6-speed stick and drove it in rain, snow, ice, and highway on 31's.

I have a replacement tank & straps for my rusted original but I have no skid plate. An affordable skid plate is hard to find. I also don't think that the stock location is best for a truck that is going to be a toy without a skid plate. My options are to build a skid from scratch or mount the tank in a safer location. This second choice looks to be doable so... I am thinking about using a chest-type rectangular bed tool box (free from friend) and mounting the replacement tank in the box. Such "combo tanks" that look like a truck box but use half as a fuel tank are readily available (for around $700 http://www.transferflow.com/fuel-tanks/toolbox-tank-combos ) so the idea is not original. It seems that doing this and rigging the fuel filler would be far easier/cheaper than buying an actual fuel cell with a compatible sender and getting an external pump. Any thoughts?

Total medal count as of 9:30 EST 2/13/14: Norway 13 (4/3/6) USA 12 (4/2/6) TIE: Canada 10 (4/4/2) Netherlands 10 (4/2/4) The Ruskies: 9 (2/4/3) Germany 8 (6/1/1) You gotta respect Norway and the Netherlands for once again bringing it.

Cool. Internally those were known as the Model 23 and they are a dandy axle. They fix all that is wrong with the Model 20 and the center section is a stout one inside and out. They used those diffs in Humvees and H1's but adapted them to IRS/IFS.

About the spring perches: Rusty's and many others sell a longer spring perch to help stop spring wrap. It should be fine just make sure you get the proper axle tube diameter for whatever axle you use. http://www.barnes4wd.com/Anti-Wrap-Leaf-Spring-Perches_c_36.html As a SOA requires welding it would be easier to get shock mounts and just weld them on then modify the old spring plates to make them work. New mounts are $14. http://www.barnes4wd.com/Bent-Axle-Shock-Bracket-Pair_p_74.html The auto used in the MJ/XJ was the AW4. The transfer case in the MJ was the 231 while the XJ could have a 231 or 242. You know you have a 231 already. If the donor was a 4.0/AW4 (auto) then yes the ratios should be 3.55 unless they have been changed.

Knowing the year,engine, and Tranny of the donor should narrow down the gear ratio. If it is a 4.0 auto they should be 3.55's, for example.

$188 for a rear set of 3" springs from hellscreek....... humm makes me think a small 3" as I have 3" OME HD springs in the garage. Will have to research brake lines, shocks, etc.... Anyone running a 3" now? Would a 31" fit well? I also have a set of 4.5" front springs so maybe the 4" would actually be 4.5 over the worn factory leafs..... Is the metric tonne model easy to identify? Not quite. Hell Creek prices their leaf springs individually. You are looking at $378 for a pair. "The prices shown are for individual leaf springs only. If you require two or more leaf springs, please change the quantity on the checkout page. " Product HC-MJ-3 Jeep 3" Rear Spring Quantity 2 Price per spring 188.78 Total 377.56

Holy necromancy, Batman! Talk about raising the dead... Anyhoo... While researching my SOA I found that Rusty's offers a kit to do a SOA on the MJ. It includes weld-on shock mounts for the axle tube much like most of us would source from Iron Rock or Barnes or RuffStuff. While I am not using this kit the shock that they use in their kit is their RX13. It is 15.67 collapsed and 26.07 extended. This may give someone looking for shock info a good starting point. http://www.rustysoffroad.com/jeep-suspension/jeep-shocks-struts-mounts/rustys-rx100-performance-shocks/ Another option is the Zone 4920 : 15.41 / 25.95 http://zoneoffroad.com/zone-offroad-products-shock-hydraulic-jeep-cherokee/4920

Something from earlier in the thread: The Goodyear SR/A's are not something I would recommend. They managed to suck on road almost as badly as they do off-road. Wet weather traction on pavement was horrible. They are one reason I lifted my KJ so early in the warranty period because if I was going to buy tires I was only going to do it once and I could not live with those. It is true that not only don't most flotation tires "measure up" another important factor is the aggressiveness of the tread. Large shoulder lugs will cause you much more headaches than the typical all-season tread. Rockfrog: I can see why you would like the move to 4.56 gears. That is a great improvement over the 3.55's even with the 225/75/15 stockers. It even moves your RPM range up into a more usable range in 5th than the stock configuration. Some of the "feel" difference could be the 5spd/automatic difference, as well.

This is supposed to be a really good upgrade. I wish I knew someone with experience with it. $421 here http://mudflaps.com/i-13978043-crown-automotive-ddbxj2-dual-diaphragm-booster.html

We are American...we don't need luck....or stinkin' badges :rock on: :peek:

Sorry, what? I see your pile of consolation prizes and raise you 14 gold medals to your 10. No one up here got blown up, but you're welcome to continue thinking that... Teasing doesn't come over well on the 'net. I was comparing the Canadians, close friends, to the Russians, decades long adversaries, as the comparison is not apples to apples. Absurd comparisons are a type of humor. But to put things in perspective so that neither of us will have to think "that": The Great White North wouldn't even win Bronze in their strong suit the Winter Olympics. The medal winners would be Gold = Norway. Silver = USA. Bronze = USSR/Russia. Anything but Gold may be a consolation price but it beats not even getting to sit at the grown-ups table. I guess when you are 8th why try harder? http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/02/winter-olympics-medal-count-sochi-all-time-facts/ As winter Olympic sports are something that a small percentage of our population just plays at for the most part ( with much of our country never seeing sub-freezing temperatures or snow) if ya want to get serious would you care to compare total summer Olympic medal counts or total combined Olympic medal counts? :cheers: (BTW: Every website that I can find shows a different medal count for 1988 than you cite. Can you post a link about it or something? I am not doubting them but my google-foo is weak.)

It is a great write-up and I am not alone in appreciating the work that went into it. You make another good point in that many of us who wheel their MJ's hard may rarely use it as a truck so there can't be a "one size fits all" solution. I have used your research to compile a list of parts I will source for my SOA. Thanks for blazing the trail.

Good catch on the flip. I read "Ford" and believe what I thought I saw in the pic. just to throw this out if it helps someone later: Dodge D60 & D61 axles used external hubs through 1989

The stock JK wheels have a deeper backspacing (6.25") than earlier jeeps. With the 1.25" spidertrax spacer adapters I used to run on the XJ the wheels were equivalent to the stock 5" bs wheels. That said even my 4.0 had trouble turning them with stock gearing until I went to 4.56. With the 2.5 ... 4.88 would be the minimum ratio. 5.13 may prove better but would need axle swaps to accomplish. 4.0 auto with 3.55's will turn 32x11.5's just fine on and off-road. I would not try it with the 2.5 even with 4.10's. http://www.grimmjeeper.com/gears.html You can go to that site and play with different axle ratios and tire sizes to see the effect the various changes will have on your jeep.

I don't think I have other issues.... The springs are stock, to my knowledge. I swapped a 8.8 under the rear with SOA. There is lift shackles on the truck already. They were on it when I bought it. Not sure how much lift they are though. Here are pictures of the shackle angle. Good angle or not a good angle? He is SOA. I am not sure what size tire is posted in the pics above (32's maybe?) but there seems to be enough clearance there for 35's now once you leveled the front, bringing the front wheel well lip even with the rear. To each their own and I don't know how he intends to use his jeep, anyway.

The front D30 was always open from the factory.

Made in the USA does not equal American or supporting America. A Honda assembled in Ohio is no more American than a GM car assembled in Germany is German a car. Toyota may assemble cars here but if asked will they say that they are an American company? Of course not. Who considers BMW an American brand because they assemble some cars here? No one. So why did people think that it applies to Honda? I have no simple link to show it but Japan has been exploiting our trade rules for decades. Some have called it "economic warfare." Their markets are extremely protected against the importation of our products and for us to apply the same rules they have regarding imports and foreign ownership would destroy their economy. We would do to Japanese agriculture what they have done to our auto industry but they limit our imports. Rice and beef are two commodities where we would all but wipe-out their home production if they allowed us equal access. They are very ruthless in trade and have been repeatedly censured for manipulating markets. Sure cousin Jed may have a spiffy $12/hour job making widgets that are sold to Honda to put on cars here. But that is only because Uncle Jeb lost his $20/hour job making a similar widget for Ford. Citing the number of people employed by Toyota and Honda here is worthless without subtracting the number of jobs lost by other companies in the process. I assure you that the loss is greater than the gain. Is a product America? I look first to where the company is from. GM is American. BFG is French. General is German. Honda is Japanese. Sorry for the "Is it American" off-shoot to a post about what is American. But to echo something I previously posted and Gogmorgo seconded: A quality company will require high quality standards for their products no matter where they are produced. Most International companies like Goodyear make tires in many countries. Buying a Michelin made in China is not like buying a Chinese home grown brand made there. Both may meet the minimum safety standards for importation here but the longevity and performance is probably worlds apart. Where Michelin has a reputation to defend the pure Chinese company will not care because there will always be people buying crap at cheap prices no matter what.