8.8 swap, what about the ABS?

I would like to swap an 8.8 into my 2000XJ. My question is, what do I do about the ABS? Can I just set up the axle and leave the ABS unplugged? What will happen? Or, can I retro-fit the tone rings (easily) to the 8.8?

If I have to, what is the easist was to swap out the ABS? I know I could swap in a non abs XJ system, however if I am going to go through the trouble I would like more stopping power. I have herd rumors about using an E-250 master cylinder (JU?) , but cannot find any information on it.

Anyone have any expirience swapping an 8.8 in a XJ with ABS???

I just got the 8.8 with 4.10's out of a 97 explorer today and overlooked the issue with the ABS. What do I do?

I thought the 88 out of the exploror was a SUA, did it chang in a certain year? I don't know the year Jeep went coil rear, but I thought the exploror went SUA to IRS.

Rip the abs off, i put an 8.8 in my yj, out of a 96 explorer, and we just ran new lines into the drums from the old factory lines, and then hook up the ebrake cables, get the spring perches correct, and slap the tires and wheels on and you are good to go, one thing though, ford factory positive traction systems ( the limited slip in the 8.8) only locks the two axles together, if there is torque applied to both wheels, so on road, sand, snow and mud it will act like a limited slip but if one tire is off the ground it will act like an open differential, to fool the limited slip, when one tire is in the air just apply the Ebrake a little bit to apply friction to the tire in the air and make the axles lock together

When looking into doing this swap I found a write up about keeping ABS. I live in snow and want my ABS for the street. I'm not ready to do this yet, but the write up I found said they modified the tone rings. It aslo said it was a PITA. There wasn't an easy solution and they had to do some modifying, but they did get the ABS to work just fine. I think the write up was on Jeep Tech. If not I'm not sure, but I was searching under 8.8 swaps/brakes.

to keep the abs on an xj you would have to get sensors from a zj
with discs. the sensors on xj are too big to fit under the discs of the new 8.8. to put on the sensors from a zj you need to make brackets or get the complete backing shields from zj and mdify to fit onto the 8.8 axle. because the 8.8 has no mounts for sensors. the 8.8 runs the abs from a tone ring on the diff.

than you have to machine your existing tone rings with spacers so they fit the 8.8. the xj tone rings are bigger then the 8.8 axles .

i spent a lot of time and money trying to make it work and finally gave up.

i think only a couple of people made it work on the 8.8 and those were zj. i have never heard of any one with an xj that did it.

go to JU to the zj section a do a search. there was a lot of discussion on it a year ago.