DezertTitan
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Hesperia, CA
Ok so i picked up my jeep saturday night. '87 4-door. 4.0L 5 speed manual. It spent a LOT of time sitting somewhere. I came up on a 3" Rancho lift last night.
I started @ the back tonight. Yanked off one side, loosened the next. I still have the stock suspension from my Titan & it turns out my stock Titan shackles are a perfect fit & upgrade for the Cherokee! So I decide to swap out shackles.
Thats where i came into my big problem. Everything was soaked in WD40. Everything came off without an issue - except 2 bolts. The top shackle bolts were a serious pain.
The passenger side was a serious fight. Started working on the driver side while the other bolt soaked in more WD40. Once the initial release, the bolt backed off easy for about 1/8". It started getting tougher to remove, then SNAP! Luckily, it broke where I was still able to pop the shackle off.
Decided since i already had 1 broken bolt, which wasn't even that big of a fight, id go ahead and snap the other bolt as well.. That damn thing was a fight till the last thread. It creaked and popped and i thought for sure it was gonna break each twist but it actually pulled out.
So I have portion of a bolt that i need to remove from the nut that is concealed within the frame..... Tapping & backing it the rest of the way, I believe, isn't an option. The bolt already snapped trying to do that. The only other option i could come up with is cutting into the frame, removing the bolt by twisting it clockwise with vise grips and then patching the hole i cut in ghe frame...
Anybody got a better idea? Maybe somebody thats had this happen already? I read something about shackle relocating, but if i recall that was for a long travel setup & I can't afford that yet. This thing doesn't even have any lockers yet! Hah.
Also, the back bushings for the new leaf springs are a big haggard. I'm sure I can search & find an answer for that, but i thought id ask since im already starting a new thread.
Anyways sorry this is so long winded... Even after i edited out a lot of rambling lol. Thanks in advance!
- Mike
I started @ the back tonight. Yanked off one side, loosened the next. I still have the stock suspension from my Titan & it turns out my stock Titan shackles are a perfect fit & upgrade for the Cherokee! So I decide to swap out shackles.
Thats where i came into my big problem. Everything was soaked in WD40. Everything came off without an issue - except 2 bolts. The top shackle bolts were a serious pain.
The passenger side was a serious fight. Started working on the driver side while the other bolt soaked in more WD40. Once the initial release, the bolt backed off easy for about 1/8". It started getting tougher to remove, then SNAP! Luckily, it broke where I was still able to pop the shackle off.
Decided since i already had 1 broken bolt, which wasn't even that big of a fight, id go ahead and snap the other bolt as well.. That damn thing was a fight till the last thread. It creaked and popped and i thought for sure it was gonna break each twist but it actually pulled out.
So I have portion of a bolt that i need to remove from the nut that is concealed within the frame..... Tapping & backing it the rest of the way, I believe, isn't an option. The bolt already snapped trying to do that. The only other option i could come up with is cutting into the frame, removing the bolt by twisting it clockwise with vise grips and then patching the hole i cut in ghe frame...
Anybody got a better idea? Maybe somebody thats had this happen already? I read something about shackle relocating, but if i recall that was for a long travel setup & I can't afford that yet. This thing doesn't even have any lockers yet! Hah.
Also, the back bushings for the new leaf springs are a big haggard. I'm sure I can search & find an answer for that, but i thought id ask since im already starting a new thread.
Anyways sorry this is so long winded... Even after i edited out a lot of rambling lol. Thanks in advance!
- Mike