Darren

Easiest and cheapest way would be to sell your 4-banger truck and buy one with a 4-liter. Seriously.

My solution to bedside rust..... .......buy one without any.

NDN? Is that more politically correct than Indian?

Today we (RedJeep and I) got the axle mocked into place and fooled around with the front ride height as well as overall clearances. Considering I made as lot of guessing and made things up as I went along, everything seemed to fit perfectly into place. The rubber pads were removed from the upper bumpstop towers then I cut out the cup as well. Shortening the upper towers about 4". A little over 1.5 wraps were cut from the stock 2wd springs. Leaving a little less than 3" of up travel. As far as what tires I plan to run, I'll be running a 235/75R15 for now since they're new. It didn't turn out as low as I had hoped, but it'll do for now. The rear is going down another inch, then I'll drive it for a while and see how it works.

So I spent the last two days with the help of my local NAXJA chapter thrashing on my axle. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but the axle mounts were lowered 2.75", we trussed the bottom of the beam and knocked about 2" out of the center of beam to help with oil pan clearance. We also took a bent track bar, cut it and sleeved it to make it straight, and adjustable. RedJeep2.0 "free-handing" the cut on the beam, because I was too scared. Big thanks to RedJeep2.0 for the help there's no way I could have gotten this much done without his Arizona Tea fueled energy. Thanks to Mnkyboy for making my horrible notches look better. Also thanks to SpecFab for the use of their tools and their shop, without it I'd still be in my garage trying to cut the beam using a pile of cut-off wheels.

What Mnkyboy really loves best about CC is me. Congrats Nathen!

You have $1000 to buy suspension and axles to run 38" tires on an MJ? Hahaha. That's funny.

At stock height, it's worth it to just completely remove the front axle in my opinion. It takes less than an hour with basic hand tools to remove the axle and will save you lots of headache.

Good. 4-cylinders are lame.

I've ran inverted t, crossover, and y-link. I've also ran tie tod ends and Heim joints. If you ever drive your Jeep on the road I'd recommend the Currie Correctlync setup. It's worth the money. If its Offroad only, I'd go crossover with WJ knuckles, and use heim joints.

Well since all the OE has dried I got to work on relocating the factory control arm mounts. Uppers cut off Uppers trimmed down and tacked into place; This is where I had to stop because I was completely out of gas for the welder. I had zero gas because I let Ben aka mulipurposemj borrow my welder and he brought my bottle back so empty there wasn't even a reading on the gauge. Unless I get off early one day this week, I won't be able to get to the welding supply shop until next Monday. FML.

Coming together nicely.

I got the front axle pulled last night to start work on the drop. As soon as it was out my friend Dustin decided to open my hood and break a 40 of Old English in my engine compartment. For no reason. That stopped all progress.

If I was going to run 37s on my Dana 30 (which I would never do) I would run 4.56s. The 4.88 only has one tooth on the pinion contacting the ring gear. Everybody I've seen blow up a Dana 30 R&P was running 4.88s.

I've read those. Not much real tech there. Just speculation on what might work. I can get a pair of explorer sport leafs for free, but I'm wondering about their spring rate. Like I said, I'd still like the bed to be useful.

I figured even an idiot like me could figure out how to lower the rear. I was going to use 2" blocks and XJ shackles. I like the idea of blocks because I don't want to lose payload capacity as I'll be using the bed to haul stuff. So I broke a set of cast and a set of aluminum blocks before I realized they both broke because of the arch in the spring and the perch is actually curved to accommodate that. Is there another set of leafs I could use to give me the drop I'm after with as good or better payload capacity? Or should I try to fab up a set of 3" blocks out of mild steel, with a curve built in. Another option would be to put in an 8.8 with flat perches and use regular 3" blocks. But I was hoping to keep this cheap.

I got the clutch all done and the slave bled properly. So I was finally able to haul the garbage in the bed to the dump. My bench seat recovering project was a complete failure on every level. I'm actually looking for a set of 2-door XJ buckets to put in it, or I may just install the ZJ seats I have. I also decided that it will probably be a while before I do a 4wd conversion on the truck, so I might as well do something to the stance in the meantime. I did some research and decided I could lower it for almost nothing. So I got some 2" blocks and XJ shackles to drop the rear 3". I blew up one of my cast blocks before I even started torquing the u-bolts down. So I got on Craigslist and found some blocks about 20 miles away for $15. These were aluminum. I got those blocks in and decided to put the vehicle weight on the leafs before final torque. Which according to my Haynes manual is 82ft pounds for a Comanche. One of my newly purchased aluminum blocks blew apart long before reaching 82ft pounds. Damn. After closer inspection, I believe the reason I'm breaking blocks is that the Comanche leafs have quite a curve to them, and the perches are actually curved to accommodate this. So I'll have to come up with a solution to this. Anyway here is a before and after shot of the rear drop. a wheel well shot; I think I'd like it down another inch or two. Three inches just isn't enough.

I payed $1100 for a 2wd 92. Ran good and body is in great shape. That was about 4 months ago.

Yay!

Swap in an AW4 and delete the clutch pedal.

Why not have it coincide with NAXJAs 30th anniversary of the XJ. If you did, you'd get a better turnout.

Thanks Willy I appreciate it. Anyway, my clutch showed up from RockAuto. Normally I like to buy at my local Napa, but it was $60 cheaper even after shipping to order online. Of course I ordered a budget clutch for this truck. When I pulled the old clutch and slave I didn't see anything that screamed failure, but on closer inspection I noticed that the splines on the tranny side of the clutch disk were broken. Got everything installed and buttoned back up but I didn't have any brake fluid plus I was hungry so I called it a night. I'll get it bled and get to work on the bench in the next few days.

^ This.

231 vs 242; I swapped a 231 for a 242 on a vehicle I wheeled. Like said before it hangs lower so if you go with the 242 put a good skid under it. I was running an ARB in the front so the situation Mnkyboy was describing was a non-issue. If I was running a Detroit, for example, the full-time function of the 242 would cause the front axles to lock, really defeating the purpose of full-time. If you're going to run an autolocker in the front don't run a 242. Mnkyboy and jeepco are correct Eagle is wrong. Also no one should listen to Eagle, he is a bully. He is also incredibly closed minded and stubborn, even when he is wrong. Eagle is a grumpy old man who only logs on here to tell other people that they're wrong, he gets off on feeling like a "know it all". Comanche Club would be better off without him.

Sewing is woman's work.