Started the Cherokee uprising.

[Devilfrog]

So ... picked a '00 Cherokee back in '04 and it served as our Daily driver while I flogged my Bronco. Then life hit and the bronco is long gone and the Cherokee remains. Recently the wife got her new "minivan" ... an '08 JK Sahara 4dr. Deal was she got that and I can do what I want with the Cherokee. So, time to make it a little less ... pedestrian.

It's been fairly relaible and good to us over the years ... we did have a bit of a hiccup at 160,000km's when the shitty head csating of the '00's came to bear. Cracked between the 3/4 cylinder cooling jacket ... Yay. Swapped in a '93 head and SS exhaust, keeping the '00 intake and such. Worked great but getting hte exhaust sorted out was a pain, but it's worked out OK so far (getting time for a new exhaust so I'll sort that one out again.

Fast forward and we're now sitting at 270,000km's and she's still running strong with the only annoying issue being an intermittenat valve cover leak form the 93 Valve cover (will be swapping the '00 VC shortly).

And on we go with things and there was a need to replace the rear springs ... towing the tent trailer left the rear riding on the bumpstops. If I gotta replace it, might as well lift it.
So I snagged a set of '95 Dakota rear springs (lucked out and the PO had made a set of add a leaves saving me having to cut the stock dakota main). "96 dakota rear soft line for the brakes and new u-bolts and such from Island spring got it sorted. Used Comanche shocks for the rear and just did the Sway Bar BPE for now to get the rear done. Of course all four shock bolts snapped so out came the air hammer and some 10mm 10.9 bolts dropped in from the top of the shock crossmember fixed that. Total lift on the rear so far 4"

Had previously purchased a A/A SYE kit and so I finally got around to doing that bit, pretty straight forward with the hard part being getting the case out.

For the front ... Used a set of '79 Bronco 6cyl coils (270-ish lb/in rate) and they raised the front 2.5". still waiting on some 1" spacers and a few other bits to finish the front (sway links, BPE's ...). Used '92 YJ front brake lines, and will be using TJ sway links to get me going for now on the sway bar. For shocks I'm using '92 YJ fronts with BPE's.

As for tires ... in keeping with the low buck-ness of this build ... I picked up some Spidertrax wheel adapters from Westshore spring and 4X4 and threw on my Wife's stock JK Sahara wheels/tires. They are a 255/70R18 which is a 32x10.50R18 otherwise. Sure they aren't exactly aggressive (all right, barely even tame) ... but it saved me $1200 beans on new rims and tires for now and will let me decide If I like 32's or will drop down to 31's. But being as I live in Duncan and Work in Tofino (240kms once per week - going to work, and then back home the following week so 480km round trip) ... these'll do for now while I sort out the bugs. And with 32's my speedo should read somewhere close to accurate now, it's always read 10% high since we got it (although it took me a while to figure out why the cops never tagged me for speeding even though I thought I was at times)

In the books is a WJ front brake swap, WJ steering, and ZJ rear disks (if I don't find a 3.73 or 4.10 disc Explorer 8.8), Napier flares, some form of custom bumpers, and 2x6 rockers .... and of course 16" rims (steel) and some decent tires.

How it looks now

and some progress pics -
Fat Boib's tracbar bracket.

rear leaf and shock ... needs bumpstops welded on and I left the overloads in as I do tow.

Front springs and YJ brake lines, Fat Bob's Lower Arms

t-case out

took a break and tried teh hot rod look

Ye Olde SYE kit installed

Now I just need a Naxja stickum to add.

This was the only reall problem I had with the SYE kit ... have to fix that later

All in all there is nothing fancy or innovative here ... It's not meant to be a rock dominator, I got a quad for that these days ... but it is the basic medium duty wheeler and general transportation/tow rig. Still need to button up a few things once some parts arrive and then sort out the rear driveshaft. I have my front and a ZJ V8 front to choose from. The front will wait until I get around to drilling it out for u-bolts, one of the four snapped so that made that choice easy.

Should I just grind down the nub on the Speed sensor retainer? and I'm thinking of using solid axle Ford 1/2ton lower spring retainers to add a little more to the front ... they would be bolted to the stock spring mounts and act as the reatiner as well. Should add another 1.5"

I have started pulling the rear shackle bolts and the uppers came out pretty easily, I guess I got lucky since all other bolts snapped. How much shackle would I need to rotate the pinion correctly (also have some shackle relocation brackets coming from HD offroad.
Or should I just plan to do a combo of a slightly longer shackle and degree shims?

Yeah, I know the JK wheels look kinda goofy, but the wife likes them so I guess I can deal with it for now, it was a cost saving in the 'right now' ... and I already have a potential buyer for the wheels and adapters ... hopefully with the sale of my stock Icons and these I can get some proper treads on this thing.

Dave

 

[Devilfrog]

So, I just measured my ZJ front shaft ... I put the slip at the shiny part of the slip and measured ~36" .... that doesn't compute ...

How much slip should I allow when measuring? 1", 2" or just center it?

 

[Devilfrog]

It moves! only have about 3/4" slip on the rear shaft and it's rear wheel only right now ... but I just drove it back and forth in my driveway ... that was ... umm ... fun?
Looks I could run a staright u-joint shaft as is right now the angles are that close. But that would mean more expense than I want right now ... figure I might throw a 1" spacer on the trans mount crossmember, the shackle relocators and a slightly longer shackle and I may not need shims, we'll see.
She's pretty tight on the front but with a little bit of flare trimming she'll have plenty of room (and the front will be going up another inch or so so it shouldn't be a problem. The rear has room to spare for now. Hopefully when I get back from work next week all my parts will be here and I can get this thing on the road.

On the crossmemeber drop ... I have one stud and one through bolt ... the stud is not long enough for a spacer how does everyone get around that?

 

[VAhasnoWAVES]

why are you wanting to put a crossmember drop in after your SYE install? if your angles are off... shim the rear axle, dont drop the Tcase.



double nut the stud and it should unscrew. install longer bolts all the way around.

 

[Devilfrog]

temp solution as I eventually plan to swap in an 8.8 ... Heck, I may do away with the stock crossmember all together later and make one out of 2x6 tube and incorporate skids and a slight drop (countersink the mount) into it anyway.

I'm just looking at ways to get back on the road quickly so I can work out the bugs I'm gonna have now.

I'll try my stock FS Bronco blocks (ford factory shims with ~3 degree taper about 1" thick at the tall end). Oddly most of my imporvised parts have come out of the leftovers box from my old '81 Bronco. If that solves my angle issue, great if not I'm looking for quick'n'dirty ways to solve it for now type deal (then I can work on proper fixes when I'm mobile). I like to have my options covered before I jump in.

 

[XJRocket]

temp solution as I eventually plan to swap in an 8.8 ... Heck, I may do away with the stock crossmember all together later and make one out of 2x6 tube and incorporate skids and a slight drop (countersink the mount) into it anyway.

I'm just looking at ways to get back on the road quickly so I can work out the bugs I'm gonna have now.

I'll try my stock FS Bronco blocks (ford factory shims with ~3 degree taper about 1" thick at the tall end). Oddly most of my imporvised parts have come out of the leftovers box from my old '81 Bronco. If that solves my angle issue, great if not I'm looking for quick'n'dirty ways to solve it for now type deal (then I can work on proper fixes when I'm mobile). I like to have my options covered before I jump in.

IIRC, My FSB had 3" wide rear springs. Cherokars do not...

 

[Devilfrog]

Yep they do but I plan to cut the corners to fit inside the u-bolts ... Shouldn't take much as the 9" and the C8.25 have the same tube diameter (3") and the blocks are only as long as the ubolt spacing and just a bit narrower than 3".

 

[Devilfrog]

SooOOoo ...

Picked up some used 3.5" RE TJ springs and tossed them in with a set of 1.75" spacers .... looks like the front is getting a 5.5" lift now ... been told it'll settle down about an inch, but is that really gonna happen with used springs (used for 6yrs)? Without the spacers I only measured a 2.5" lift (obviously I measured wrong there) and after the wrestling match getting the passenger side spring in (twice) ... I ain't doing it again. I'll probably have to spring for adjustable uppers now (unless it settles down, then I'm golden). My suspension bits are setup for a 4.5" max lift ... with only and extra inch my tracbar and LCA's should be OK, but my pinion angle on the front is a little off. After all the finagling I've done so far ... how bad can the uppers be to get out huh? DOH!
Eventually I'll spring for a Long-arm upgrade, but that's a ways off. Hell I need new wheels and tires first.

Started pulling the rear bumper and shackles out for the HD Offroad shackle relocation brackets. Stock shackles came out easy enough (sometimes I get lucky), and all but one of the Receiver hitch bolts came off easy enough (and sometimes I don't get lucky), have to cut the last one in the AM.

So looks like I'll be doing the 6" lift I had originally wanted after all. I'll snap some progress pics tomorrow. Anyone need a set of stock YJ front shocks? Don't think these are going to be long enough now.
My rears will be fine, picked up a set of Zone weld on Shock mounts so I'll use the shock bre drill redrill and trim my stock brackets, with the relocation brackets and a longer shackle (Dakota's?) I should be good for rear pinion angle, but I grabbed a set of 2.5* shims from Westshore just in also.
I aslo bit the bullet and ordered a set of Napier Flares ... then It's waiting time while I accrue the funds for front and rear bumpers from Ryan at Karnage Fab. I'm digging the rear bumper he made for a guy at Westshore Spring and 4x4 .... so that's my plan there (gonna need a new rear bumper for sure, I got a little angry at my stock bumper and it's a little tweaked now).

 

[Devilfrog]

so here's the pics so far ... I sadly just dove into it this afternoon, so no up on jackstands pics ... sorry folks.

I'm currently using a set of dakota shackles (~ 1/2" lift) to see where it sits ... I'm going to replace those with some 1" lift shackles. And then I should be driveable. I'm thinking of making some axle relocator brackets and moving the axle back 3/4-1" to center in the well, and hopefully that'll give me enough slip to run my rear driveshaft. Otherwise I'll have to trade for a stock XJ auto front, or use my current front in the rear and run 2wd for a while.

Last week's look

This week's atance

And now for my real problem ...
Need a shorter shaft ... this one's a 98 ZJ V8 Auto shaft and that's on 5.5" lift height so far

 

[Tacedaddy]

SOOO much rust on everything underneath, i'd be scared to run those leaves

 

[VAhasnoWAVES]

try your front shaft. i have the AX15, which is shorter than the AW4... and still used the front shaft out of an auto.

 

[Devilfrog]

OK time to bring you all back up to speed on this ... been pretty lax in that regard lately.

part 1

June 23 -

Got the relocation brackets trimmed mounted and torqued. 1" lift shackles (bds) in and greased. Rear driveshaft shortened and installed. Adjustable UCA's in ...
Just needs a test drive, alignment, install the rear axle relocation plates (3/4") and install the.front driveshaft. Then insurance .... Hopefully Monday.

Yesterday was a good day.

June 24 -

tried the axle relocation plates ... then realized I had completely gapped and had to modify the spring plates as well ... well, good time as any to talk to Ryan at Karnage fabworks about making me some new ones with bumpstops incorporated. Or, am I just making excuses to go look at his Jeep-ish Bitch again? Otherwise back end is re-torqued and ready to roll.

June 25 -

did a driveway alignment this morning ...
toe-in set to 1/8"
steering wheel set to center-ish
stretched the upper control arms to raise the pinion some for a better driveshaft angle in the front.
Went to install teh front shaft ... going to have top replace the front yoke ... tried the drill it out and run u-bolts method and that was a complete no-go .... too much webbing on the back of the yoke to allow for a nut to seat and I'm not gonna mickey duck a shitty spacer.
Guess I'll have to hit the local truck parts place here in town and order a new one. Might give Maxwell's a jingle in the morning and see if they have a pinion since I need a pair of stock rear spring plates anyway.

So, still no test drive (well, other than driving it around my driveway) ... and another re-torquing of the control arms is in order.
And, she's a 2wd for now ... shitty

June 26 -

well, got it insured and did a test drive around town ... holy twitchy. Got home reset caster, much better but still not all there. Driver front caliper is seized from sitting and the rear shaft needs new u-joints. Got it up to 100kph and had no wobbles or vibes but could hear those u-joints.
Reset toe to help with the twitchy steering, think I have it right this time. Probably take it in for a pro alignment eventually but want to replace the BJ's and some other stuff in the steering first.
Not a lot of bump steer but she tends to 'dig steer' ... what I call it when she starts pulling to one side and then when you correct it it pulls in that direction ... probably to do with the toe setting and the high angles on the drag link.
Going to have to swap in the adjustable trac-bar and find a ZJ pitman to help that a bit. Pretty sure my stock steering damper is shot as well.

Upshot is, my Napier flares are here now.

Adjusted the toe-in one more time .. and she drives alot better. Going to do the UJ's next shift out and will need to do the BJ's but it should be ready for the highway next days out.

Here's some pics from today pavement princess tour.

The rear Shackle relocation plates trimmed and painted with the BDS 1" lift shackles

 

[Devilfrog]

part 2

July 5 -

Good parts run today, got my new steering stabilizer, Bart hooked me up with sway links and a source for a new front pinion ...
Then spent an afternoon at goldstream with the kids. On the way home Blacky's calls and now I've got another full set of rear disc brakes for $50 ... With the set I already have I have a complete and replacements for the more worn parts.
Need to add a little more caster as well. Thinking I'going to drill the upper bushings for 7/16" bolts while I'm at it.
I'll try and remember the underside pics this time around.
Gonna swap out the Trac bar this time as well.

July 6 -

OK so here's some pics of the font end kerfuffle ... just shortly after taking these I drilled the lower holes in the drop bracket to 1/2" and the upper hole to 7/16". Ryan at Karnage was kind enough to give me the bushing need to convert the lower end of the Rusty's Trac bar to use the larger bolt.
I also snagged some pic's of the new Zone Stabilizer and the new to me Rusty's old style Adjustable Upper Control Arms.

The trac bar is still hanging as I need to hit up Fastenall for some Gr* bolt in the AM. I'm going to need to shorten the trac bar a bit as my first guess was a bit off.
Then I need to add a bit more caster as well as she's still a bit twitchy on the road, fine for me alone, but too twitchy for me to let the Kids ride along. But it's definitely not the white knuckle two fisted death grip ride the first test was. Now it kinda drives like an all shackle 3" lifted CJ on 33's (yeah I've driven one of those, almost bought it too ... blech!) but with a smother feel to it.
I'm thinking I'm going to hog out the upper control arms for either 3/8" or 7/16" Gr8 bolts as the 10mm stock bolts allow a fair deal of slop (that and I snapped a 10mm 10.9 one torquing it up to 60 ft lbs - I'll feel safer with better bolts). The new Moog bushings also have nubs inside to position the bolts and even then the 10mm was pretty sloppy, but 3/8" didn't fit hopefully i won't kill all my bits (I have a bunch of 3/8" cobalts, but only one jobber 7/16" bit).
It ain't pretty but it's all in good shape, hell I even had to get the shiny Stabilizer greasy because it looked so out of place.
Also going to convert my Sanden for OBA so I can stop trying to fix the A/C ... Mine uses a manifold block so I'll see what I can come up with there. I have a small dead Mastercrap compressor/tank combo I was gonna toss, now it's parts ... win/win.
Probably leave the rear brakes for next shift out though, going quadding overnight tomorrow afternoon ... But it's still a 4x4 fix.

 

[Devilfrog]

Couple updates to bring us back up to speed.

Replaced the front swaybar bushings at the frame.
Replaced the far too short TJ sway links I was using for a set of Links I got from Westshore (thanks Bart) on one side and a Disconnect of unknown make I got from Y2KTJ a while back. Had Karnage Fabworks make new brackets for the swaybar and match the length of the disco link.
Swapped out the too short YJ shocks for a set of old Rancho's I got off Eric S that were the right-ish length and better suited to my needs.
Re-centered my front axle, so now it's actually centered ... ish.
Pulled my rear driveshaft due to vibration issues, and replaced it with my front driveshaft (which allows me forward movment again, but not a lot of leeway on movement.
Painted my front diff cover because I should at least get rid of some of the rust.
Than my wife made me wash it ...

And a couple pics to show the Karnage work ... new spring plates and perches to move the axle back ~3/4" and relocated lower shock mounts.

and a picture of what a stock front driveshaft looks like at 6" lift and 3/4" back on the axle ... I think it looks a little on the short side, it's just barely long enough. Since all the movement is going to push the axle forward, I should be OK for now.

Working on getting a new rear shaft sorted though.

She rides really nice on around town now. Still debating adding more caster and I need to straigthen the steering wheel again ... I'm at the point where it rides nice but I have no return to center, otherwise ... surprisingly ... she rides pretty close to how she did before I lifted it. Pretty damn good in my books.

 

[Devilfrog]

And this should about bring us up to speed ... brakes were done today.

Made some Caster Shims for the lower control arm mount, 4 @ 1/4" and 2 @ 3/8" thick

Then trimmed the front bumper to allow for turning without rubbing, it'll work until I can afford the new bumpers.

Then Burped the cooling system

then today I started the rear disc brake swap.
I used -
'95 ZJ rear brackets and backing plates.
'95 ZJ parking brake shoes
'06 TJ calipers
'06 TJ pads
'06 TJ disc's
Longer ZJ wheel studs
longer ZJ backing plate studs
'06 TJ brake parts kits (parking and caliper)
'95 ZJ parking brake arm boots.

only the '06 TJ [parts were purchased new the rest were salvaged from the wrecker parts

started with these sets

took them out to work and cleaned and separated all the parts and salvaged what I needed, then painted them up. the bracket and backing plate are held together by two rivets easily replaced after cleanup.

You may ask why the '06 TJ bits and not all '95 ZJ stuff? Well it's simple, better parts ... the calipers are the same and for the most part so are the brackets where it matters. The '06 TJ rotors are almost identical but are slightly thicker and anly .05" taller. all other dimensions are the same as the ZJ rotors. The pads for the TJ mount using SS overirders on the caliper brackets ... this means all the worn out ZJ brackets with pad divots are no longer just scrap, you get a new pad surface everytime you do them ... without having to weld and grind to avoid buying new brackets. It solves the whole issue simple. It also helped that I had a set of TJ rotors left over from when I had a '06 TJ ironicly enough.

and the finished product

I have the ZJ prop valve as well but so far it hasn't been needed there is no drag and the squeaking I had previously due to digging deeper into the brake pedal is gone. The master/booster was squeaking on release, I figure since I was almost hitting ther floor to stop with the larger tires. Now it stops as good or slightly better than stock, and when I drop the WJ fronts on I should be golden in the brake department.I also nee to relace the rear hard lines for some shorter ones, I'll measure those tomorrow and swap those in, for now I just bent everything to where it needed to go to connect. Not ideal, but temporary.

And since I was already there, I swapped the RuffStuff rear 8.25 diff cover on topped up and test drove.

Also swapped in a newly balanced shaft that is a more appropriate length for the rear.

So I now have a pair of spare brackets and backing plates cleaned up ready to go, and a set of almost new XJ HD (2.5" wide) rear drums complete anyone interested PM me about them.

 

[XJRN]

What was that short drive shaft out of? Did you have it shortened? I may have missed that.

 

[Devilfrog]

That was my stock front shaft.

 

[Devilfrog]

Slowish day today, ran new brake lines last night, then spent some time at Karnage Fabworks. Got new bumpstop springplates, and rear soft hose mounting tabs welded on. Then went home and swapped the standard cap screws holding the diff cover on for some button heads since the capsrews were all but impossible to tighten down with a wrench due to the machined recess. The button heads with splitlock washers fit in perfectly and allow proper tightening to the oh so technical snug plus a 1/4.

Dropped the WJ knuckles, spacers and a hub with Ryan and Phil so I'm starting down the WJ knuckle swap road finally.
Had a bit of an issue with the rear discs but it turned out to be a backing plate rubbing on the drivers side rotor ... little technical work with a screwdriver solved that right away.

 

[98REDXJ2]

how much travel to the Comanche shocks have? like in comparison to stock?

I really need new shocks and don't really want to or can afford like 200$ for lift shocks.

thanks,

 

[Devilfrog]

Stock shocks are around 7.25" travel (12.75" compressed, 20" extended)
The Comanche shocks are about 8.635" travel (14.375 compressed, 23" extended)
So a little bit more and given the shock angle that's a couple extra inches at the wheel.

With the stock lower mounts these suckers were about stretched full, I had the lowers remounted using Zone mounts and now they are only a little short in my mind. But I have 6" lift on the rear. For a 3-4" lift they would be perfect. They are valved perfectly for the ride I want which is nice. Eventually I will replace them with something more appropriate but that's not a priority for me right now, these fit the bill and work fine.
I do have a set of Pro-Comp ES9000's for the rear on a 4" JK lift I might try eventually. I replaced the rear shocks on my wife's '08 4dr JK when her bushings were shot and broke an upper Bar Pin ... so new bushings is all those will need. But the may prove too stiff.