u bolt plates

i was getting ready to lift the mj when i noticed that the passenger side u bolt plate (the thing that clamps the springs to the axle by way of the u bolts) has a bend in it. The plate itself is wider than the springs and it looks like when they torqued the u bolts it bent upwards. At the same time the u bolts appear to ahve bent outward toward the diff with the flexing of the plate! I don't want to just put my lift an use that bent plate so what are my options? Thanks for all your help


Mike

The torque for the U-bolts is 52ft/lbs. It does sound like someone over torqued them. If you curious, you can check to see where a torque wrench stops "clicking-off" to see where they were torqued down to. The nuts on a Comanche's U-bolts get torqued to 82ft/lbs, maybe somone made a mistake and didn't care that they bent the plate. Who knows, but you need to get new U-bolts, nuts and plates. You can get them from the stealership (and they most likely won't be in stock and you'll have a 3-5 day wait) but you should be able to save some money can get them from an offroad shop.

Commanche u-bolts are torqued higher because they are 14mm bolts and XJs have 12mm bolts.

The options for plates are dealership or junkyard. I've found that most from junkyards are beginning to bow, and I prefer to buy new ones from the dealer. Be sure to specify what axle -- the tubes for the 8.25 are larger than the D35 and D44 and require a different plate. The older ones are slotted to fit the D35 and D44 interchangably.

Thanks for all the hlp guy's i will probably get a price from the dealership and go from there. Sure is a nice excuse to ditch the d35 and go springover but there's those tiny little factors of time and money, oh well who knows what will happen, thanks again....



Mike