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Odd Parking

Gecko

NAXJA Forum User
Is it bad to leave my Jeep parked with the suspension in kinda odd spots. Like when there are huge snowbanks at school or the mall or such, I just drive up onto them. It means that I leave the Jeep tipped a bit to the side and back for a while. One day at school I hade it about 20-30 degrees forward/up and some sideways too and I was just thinking about how it'll happen again now that winters coming. Does leaving it at odd angles like that cause problems for the suspension or anything? I figured that it wouldnt cause its kinda like being on a steep road, but some of my friends tell me that its pretty bad. Just thought I'd get some input before it snows again.
 
Well, the thing about our beloved XJ's is that the unibodies don't like extreme twisting on a frequent basis. As strong as they are, it's the repetition that kills 'em. I've got a '93 2dr and with the infrequent 'wheeling I do with it, I'm already seeing some tweaking of the body panels around the "B" pilars and minor cracking at the "C" pilars where the pilar meets the roof. Also down low in the corner of the door frames below the body vent. But my rig sees some fairly decent hard core use when I do use it.

If you were to park on a snow bank and leave it max-flexed for a period of time, there's a good chance that the continuous pressure could cause cracking to certain areas of the unibody. I suppose it could even cause bending to a small degree where the unibody won't return to normal. Max-flexing then returning to normal (as in typical rock crawling) only involves quick periods of stress application.

In short, I'd imagine you'd really have to get your rig flexed up big time and leave it like that for hours for the problem to occur. But then again, depending on how solid your particular unibody is - I'm talking rust through here - that would certainly aggravate the problem.

That's my .02 anyways :cool:
Troy
 
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