BIGHEEP

I plan on going to bucket seats in the future and will also probably install a full center console. I was wondering if anyone else had done this with a column shift auto and what they did to address the empty hole where the shifter would usually go? I could easily just block it off but I wanted to see what others have done.

You need to ask yourself what you really want. Do you want a street truck that looks like a baja truck or a truck that you could actually use offroad? A stock D30 or D44 housing/knuckles are no going to handle being thrown around offroad with deep offset wheels and 37" tires very long. The bigger the tire the more stress you are putting on the axle, steering, suspension components. You might get away with it for a while but it is going to break eventually. You could build a D44 to hold up but you are talking lots of $$$. I know you want to stay low but stock height and 37" tires is not going to happen. The lowest Comanche I have seen with 37" tires and Baja fenders is the Zone Offroad Comanche and I think he was running around 5" of lift. Here is his thread: http://comancheclub.com/topic/28780-project-mj-for-2011-ultimate-adventure-update-for-12-trip/ Give it a good read and see the amount of work you are talking about doing.

Sounds like you have cool ideas but unfortunately not all of them will work. For the front axle a D30 may be able to survive under the front with 37" tires if you stick to pavement or gravel roads but if you start doing any type of wheeling it is a ticking time bomb. A D44 really isn't much of an upgrade over a D30 because in most cases they run the same size u-joint as a D30. As for a D60 front axle, its not going to happen at stock height. The massive pumpkin (and truss needed for mounting it) is not going want to share space with your oil pan. In the rear the stock D35 is weak. A lot of people get away with running 31-33" tires on the street with a D35 but you have to drive like you have a D35. I have seen a D35 snap a shaft pulling out of a parking lot with stock tires. You can fit pretty much any axle you want under the rear. The 8.8 is a popular and easy swap for the rear due to the matching bolt pattern like Dunnc1991 said but 37" tires is even pushing the limits of an 8.8. As for 37" tires on stock height? Unless you plan on running the tires outside the wheel wells with really offset rims or only going in a straight line I think you are going to run into issues trying to make turns with 37"s.

Route your washer fluid through it? :)

Thanks for all the pics guys. The trucks look great. I went ahead and lifted the front of my truck last weekend. I should have it completed this weekend.

ATF+4 Dex/Merc II and/or III only. No ATF+4 in AW4. What hornbrod said, ATF+4 in the t-case but never the transmission.

I was thinking the alignment shims might be part of the problem with moving the axle to far forward. It also looks like the stabilizer mount may be tweaked forward a bit. I think it might be a combination of a few small things. I will straighten the mount and remove the shims then see if that fixes the problem.

I will get some pics tonight. I used the RE drop brackets with stock control arms.

I just buttoned up putting a 5.5 lift in the front of my Comanche and also swapped to ZJ steering at the same time. I put everything together but when I tried to seat the TRE to the pitman arm I could feel the steering binding on something. After closer inspection I realized the tie rod where it mounts to the drag link is hitting the steering stabilizer bolt. I actually had to remove the bolt to seat the TRE in the pitman arm. It looks that maybe a drop pitman arm may help a tiny bit. I could also replace the bolt with a button head, that might help a bit too. Anyone else experience this? If so how did you fix it? Suggestions?

As far as I am concerned Clayton is the bench mark for all other long arm kits to be measured against. I have never seen one of their arms fail and if it did I am sure they would make it right. A friend of mine has been running a Clayton kit in his ZJ for the better part of a decade and he usually wheels with the buggy guys. He actually is looking for a new ZJ to have Clayton swap his old suspension onto because it outlasted the unibody of his current Jeep.

Quick question, is everyone still using the stock pitman arm with this lift?

I have used the heat method in the past with good results. Like you said you have to be careful to not overheat the box and keep the heat concentrated to the arm itself. I would usually use the same method as you but the pitman arm puller I got from Autozone has a shoulder cast on the end of the nut so that you can not put a socket on it, only a wrench. Maybe they had to many people snapping their rental arm pullers. :dunno:

Coils are in, brakes are on. Brake lines do not want to come off. I think I am going to have to cut the hard lines and reflare them to install the new Chevy hoses. Threw on the tires so I can put it on the ground and install the track bar. Of course I had to take a pic. I still need to replace the pitman arm. It does not want to come off either even with a BFH and a puller. I am going to add some heat and see if that works. I still have to install the shocks and get some new hardware because all the bolts on the bar pins snapped during removel. I am kind of disappointed the new Teraflex bar pin eliminators didn't come with those bolts. O' well, I guess it's an excuse to go to Tractor Supply. Oh yeah, in the pic you can see I installed one of the 97+ mirrors I grabbed at the JY last trip. It is about time this truck is getting some attention.

And just to add a little more uncertainty,1996 was the transition year. Some XJ's manufactured in late 1996 got the 29 spline 8.25 also. I swapped a 29 spline 8.25 out of a 1996 XJ into my old 1988 XJ.

Yeah, there lies the problem. The axle came with a good set of LCA attached. I soon figured out the PO never removed them because the axle side bolts are seized. It was a battle to get the other end of the arms inside the alignment adjusters and align the bolt holes while the axle was still attached to the other end of the arms. It kept catching the edge of the alignment adjusters and bending the heck out of them. I had planned on putting in the coils first then got ahead of myself.

Well, it has an axle..... kind of. It is in but I thought I might be able to sneak the RE 5.5 coils in without spring compressors. No dice. I will have to hit up Autozone in the morning and hopefully I will have the Jeep on it's tires by noon.

I ran JKS swaybar disconnects on my XJ and loved them.

Your truck was one of the two I was talking about. Looks awesome! :thumbsup:

Not sure if this will help but the 6 cyl. Dodge Dakota came with the ax-15 as well. A am sure there are a lot more 2wd AX-15 trannys kicking around from those. You might want to try to source parts from one of those.

I have found 2 Comanches in the project section so far with 5.5" of lift and 32" tires. In fact I used to run 32" TSLs on my old 6" lifted LWB. I don't think they look funny at all. I personally think a truck with a little bit of room in the wheel wells looks better then a truck that has the wheel wells stuffed with tire. Ideally I would go with a 33-35" tires but like I said I have the rims and tires. I am sure I will go bigger maybe next year if I come across a good deal. '

I keep going back and forth on wether to lower or lift my MJ. I have the parts to do both but honestly a lifted MJ would be more practical for me. Since I have a good set of 31" tires on rims from my YJ I will be sticking with those for now. So post some pics of MJs with the SOA/31" combo and give me some motivation to finish mine.

I had a buddy call about the truck today. The guy said the body was junk. No other details.

Someone grab this! http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/cto/4661662056.html

https://nh.craigslist.org/cto/4659566165.html

Honestly the bench seat will probably only be temporary. I plan on swapping in a nice set of leather Grand Cherokee buckets at some point.