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Showing results for tags 'front axle'.
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Got a question for the suspension experts here in the forum: As you may know, my son recently converted his 89 MJ by performing the 99 conversion. In that conversion we swapped a Dana 30 into his front end from the 99 XJ. As we ran short of time rebuilding the axle was placed on hold...we changed the fluid, greased the ball joints and tie rod ends and had it aligned. As he is home from college for a week, we ripped it apart and replaced the following: Ball joints Sway bar links Track bar Hubs U joints Steering link (from Pitman arm to passenger knuckle) Tie rod ends Steering dampner We used all MOOG parts. Now the problem: When we took the truck for alignment, the front tires are both toed out - about 1.75 inches on the passenger and 1 inch on the drivers side. The tie rod ends are completely turned in without any more threads available. We thought Rock Auto sent the wrong tie rod ends at first, but my son went to two different parts stores and measured the ones we have against their stock - all were identical in length (we even tried the ones from WJ's and Wranglers...the lengths are all the same with only small differences in diameter). When I retrieved the old ones from the scrap pile - they are both 1.5 inches shorter in overall length but the thread end length is still the same length @ 2.5 inches - meaning the neck of the ball joints are different. We can find NONE that are the length of the old parts. Then, we checked the 87 MJ's setup. The tie rod sleeve is 36" on both axles, and the tie rod ends are the same part number as the ones we received for the 99! That vehicle still has about .5 of threads available for adjustments. How can this be? The knuckles are identical on both trucks... the ONLY difference is the axle on the 87 is 2WD and the 99 is 4WD...the hub is different but that is it (we had already rebuilt the axle on the 87...I went back and checked part numbers - they are all the same but the hubs). We finally found a tie rod sleeve at O'Reilly's for (no specific year) Jeep XJ that measures 34 inches long but the salesperson could not explain why that exists as all the others we have are 36 inches... Has anyone had a problem such as this? There are no marks or part numbers whatsoever on the old tie rod ends to identify them. :hmm:
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- tie rod
- suspension
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