My '01 XJ - A Work in Progress

Jamescad04 said:
Ive got the zj tierod and tierod ends i went with moog so far there great holding very well tightened up my steering. As far as tracbar I went with Ironman 4x4 fab they sell extremely beefy stuff at the best price i have found.

http://www.ironman4x4fab.com/
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x2 on both acoXXXXs. ZJ tierod is a great upgrade for a mild wheeler. Andy @ Ironman is top notch stuff. Of course my opnion is biased. LOL!
 
I've heard about Ironman stuff, and with your opinions, I think I'll probably end up with a tie rod and track bar from him. What about a drag link though? I guess I don't necessarily need a steering "conversion", just upgraded parts.
 
bzauche said:
I've heard about Ironman stuff, and with your opinions, I think I'll probably end up with a tie rod and track bar from him. What about a drag link though? I guess I don't necessarily need a steering "conversion", just upgraded parts.
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Honsestly the drag link is something I would leave stock till you need to replace it. The drang link is leaps and bounds stronger then the tierod. Andy will give you his no BS opnion.
 
Andy's control arms are Solid steel! they could withstand hitting a brick wall at 50mph! (*something like that)
 
So an Ironman tie rod, track bar, and possibly control arms. I agree, his prices are great for what it seems like you're getting. Opinions on control arm drop kits? I'm still running stock CA's at stock bracket heights am I'm thinking the drop kit could smooth my ride a bit. I was thinking Rocky Road's kit, or possibly RC's.
 
bzauche said:
So an Ironman tie rod, track bar, and possibly control arms. I agree, his prices are great for what it seems like you're getting. Opinions on control arm drop kits? I'm still running stock CA's at stock bracket heights am I'm thinking the drop kit could smooth my ride a bit. I was thinking Rocky Road's kit, or possibly RC's.
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You really don't need the drop brackets until you get to 4.5" of lift or more.

Shaggybob had the Rocky Road kit and it looked like a nice setup. Rubicon Express makes a good kit to. These two kits have the longer reinforcement brackets that go back to the trans cossmember.

I have the RC kit and it does a good job. The braces don't go back as far as the other two kits. I have HD Offroad stiffners and tied them into them for strength.
 
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I think I'm sitting at about 4.5". I know new shocks will help with the ride quality too. Right now I'm running el-cheapo RC shocks, but I'm thinking some Bilstein 5100's are in my near future.
 
As far as shocks I went with rancho 9000's In my opinion way more worth the money rather then the bilstiens. the ranchos are adjustable which gives you tons of range to how you like to drive. Plus it improved the ride quality ten fold. If your gonna do new shocks I might suggest doing upper and lower bar bin eliminators and stem eliminators at the same time. That small mod is worth its weight in gold.
 
I just wanted to give my .02 cents but the Ironman4x4 track bar is great! I bought it and absolutely love it! I will recommend welding the double sheer mount to the stock track bar mount as bolting it on is not as strong and trying to get a wrench in there to tighten it down is near impossible. Welding it in is simple and just takes a few minutes and is much stronger than bolting it in. Andy says it is bolt in on his site but in his directions he sends with it he highly recommends welding it in.
 
Jamescad04 said:
As far as shocks I went with rancho 9000's In my opinion way more worth the money rather then the bilstiens. the ranchos are adjustable which gives you tons of range to how you like to drive. Plus it improved the ride quality ten fold. If your gonna do new shocks I might suggest doing upper and lower bar bin eliminators and stem eliminators at the same time. That small mod is worth its weight in gold.
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I'll look into those!

Ben824 said:
I just wanted to give my .02 cents but the Ironman4x4 track bar is great! I bought it and absolutely love it! I will recommend welding the double sheer mount to the stock track bar mount as bolting it on is not as strong and trying to get a wrench in there to tighten it down is near impossible. Welding it in is simple and just takes a few minutes and is much stronger than bolting it in. Andy says it is bolt in on his site but in his directions he sends with it he highly recommends welding it in.
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I'm sold!
 
Oh, I also forgot to mention that I replaced my Rusty's trac bar with an Ironman4x4 Off Road unit. Pure beef and Andy has great customer service and ship time.

I also bought his fixed UCA's while I was working on the front end. I am at 4.5 inches in the front, and I installed some RCX drop brackets. The ride is night and day difference improvement.
 
Spawn 93 said:
Oh, I also forgot to mention that I replaced my Rusty's trac bar with an Ironman4x4 Off Road unit. Pure beef and Andy has great customer service and ship time.

I also bought his fixed UCA's while I was working on the front end. I am at 4.5 inches in the front, and I installed some RCX drop brackets. The ride is night and day difference improvement.
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Great to hear. I finally measured my lift and I'm only netting about 3.5" out of my 3" coils and 3" spacers, so it's definitely getting close to time to replace the coils and leaf springs. Once I get that done (probably going to shoot for an even 4", don't want to go too high), I'll hopefully do stuff like drop brackets and CA's. I'm hoping for 4" IRO coils, but I still need to find a suitable leaf spring replacement. I have 2" shackles but I'm cool with getting 1" shackles if it means I get good leafs. What would y'all recommend for a 4" net lift?
 
Well, any plans for near-future upgrades are being put on hold. The XJ is at a local 4x4 shop right now getting:

Black Magic Pads and Centric Rotors for the front
Moog upper and lower ball joints, both sides
New freeze plug
New water pump
New serpentine belt

Ouch!

I need to get a new track bar pretty soon so hopefully I'll be able to pick that up in the next month or so.
 
bzauche said:
Well, any plans for near-future upgrades are being put on hold. The XJ is at a local 4x4 shop right now getting:

Black Magic Pads and Centric Rotors for the front
Moog upper and lower ball joints, both sides
New freeze plug
New water pump
New serpentine belt

Ouch!

I need to get a new track bar pretty soon so hopefully I'll be able to pick that up in the next month or so.
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You would be surprised how easy all of those things are to do. How much you spend getting a shop to do all that?
 
Ben824 said:
You would be surprised how easy all of those things are to do. How much you spend getting a shop to do all that?
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Maybe easy for someone with mechanical know-how. I read about replacing the ball joints and how much of a pain it can be. I also don't have any of the equipment necessary to jack the Jeep up, and I don't have any air tools. I'd be afraid to mess something up. Other stuff like replacing my track bar, and replacing some bushings, I should be able to do by myself. In total, parts and labor included for everything, it'll be around $1k.
 
bzauche said:
Maybe easy for someone with mechanical know-how. I read about replacing the ball joints and how much of a pain it can be. I also don't have any of the equipment necessary to jack the Jeep up, and I don't have any air tools. I'd be afraid to mess something up. Other stuff like replacing my track bar, and replacing some bushings, I should be able to do by myself. In total, parts and labor included for everything, it'll be around $1k.
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There are a couple members in the Atl area that might offer to assist you but I'll let them chime in. If you were close to me I'd invite everyone out and we'd have a rebuild day! I've done lift install parties before too.
 
bzauche said:
In total, parts and labor included for everything, it'll be around $1k.
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Ya know. Once upon a time none of us had any mechanical know-how. Then we decided to give it a shot. Now, a LOT of us have completely custom Jeeps that we did every bit of ourselves.

By just a quick tally of what your parts cost I think I'd be safe to say I could do everything your shop is doing for less than 300 bucks and one after noons work. I'm not sure what those fancy brake pads cost but I'm fairly certain your shop has some stupid high labor rates.

If you have the cash, go for it. I wish I had 1k to spend on a whole bunch of stuff.
 
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