Following on from this thread in the picture forum, I figured I'd post something of a writeup of what it's like to do your first lift. I've had various 4WD vehicles over the past several years but have never had a reason to lift any of them, so this was totally new territory for me. Hopefully other people in the same boat will benefit from some of what I'm going to post here; the learning experience was as valuable as the end result of improving the XJ's off-road ability.
A couple of things I'd like to make clear at this point: I'm neither endorsing nor deriding a particular set of components in any of this, nor am I making any claims as to whether or not any of what I'm saying will apply to your particular circumstances. I'm also not writing a 'howto'; there are plenty of threads already here detailing that side of things. However, I will cover some of the caveats we ran into in the installation process, many of which are things that someone doing the same job could expect to encounter.
After some sporadic test driving of various lifted XJs out there, I settled on a hybrid version of the OME 3" Kit from DPG Offroad. When I say 'hybrid', I mean that some changes were made to the spec from the standard kit: the XJ front coils were substituted for ZJ units, and an add-a-leaf was ordered for the rear leaf packs. Although this would change the on-road manners of the suspension quite a bit, I was willing to compromise ride quality a bit in exchange for better load capacity on the occasions when I need to carry heavy stuff.
Knowing the propensity for lifted XJs to experience severe driveline vibes due to increased pinion and U-joint angles, an SYE and rear driveshaft (by High Angle Driveline) were also ordered from DPG Offroad. I'm a firm believer in patronising businesses that offer good customer service, and Dirk's is absolutely second-to-none. Extended U-bolts and 4-degree axle shims (from Rubicon Express) were also ordered from him at the same time. So here's what the parts list looked like so far:
Prep to put all of the above on began about two weeks in advance, during which time pretty much every fastener that had to be removed was hit with PB Blaster. In the 14 days leading up to this, I went through six cans of the stuff and still missed some things. If you're in any doubt as to whether or not it needs penetrant, SPRAY IT. I missed stuff that would definitely have benefitted from it - not that this was necessarily fatal, but it meant that things that should've taken less time took longer to complete.
We elected to start with the rear: it required somewhat lesser effort, and would leave the XJ more driveable in case the job couldn't be finished in one day (which indeed turned out to be the case). To prep for this, certain things were done in advance: the add-a-leafs were put into the rear springs, and the new bushings pressed in. First mistake (but it was at least a small one): the degree shims weren't fitted in advance. Other than that, the install went more or less as planned, if slowly. Part of this was down to the fact that Drew and I were completely new to doing the work involved, but also due to the Jeep having lived the first three years of its life in Northern Michigan. Stuff was just rusted on and required a lot of persuasion to remove, even with the PB Blaster.
Moving on to day two and the front suspension, there were three main things that caused problems. The first and most annoying was removing the driver's side shock absorber: it unbolted fine at the bottom, but with the additional complications of the ABS pump and brake lines in the way was a real pain to remove. The solution: remove the airbox and get an open-end wrench onto it; this gave enough swing to be able to unbolt it from the top. I won't even get into the methods we tried to use to remove the shock before figuring this out - just suffice to say that they weren't pretty or effective.
The next issue with the front involved the pins connecting the lower end of the swaybar links to the frame. They took pounding to get out, and by saying 'pounding' I'm seriously understating the issue. However, without removing them the disconnects couldn't be installed, so it was absolutely essential that they were removed. Muscle and persistence were key.
Less annoying was the length available from the brake lines and ABS sensor wiring: with the axle at full droop it was necessary to max them both out by putting weight (i.e., standing on the axle) on the appropriate side; this was an issue even with the brake lines relocated and straightened. Again, not fatal, but made putting the coils on more difficult than it should've been.
At this point, the job's basically finished. Note that there's no mention of the SYE or driveshaft in any of that - I got lucky, and it looks like the degree shims basically cancelled out any major vibes. There are some light ones at approximately 10, 40, and 80mph (a good sign - since they're all multiples of each other, this means they're happening in the same harmonic range), but nothing violent. For now I'm on the stock driveshaft with no SYE; your mileage will almost certainly vary on this. For now, I'm keeping them laying around just in case future changes require them.
Having been lucky on the vibes and calling the job done might make it seem like everything's all kittens and rainbows. However, there are a few things that still need to be done. All of this falls into the category of 'if I'd known in advance' - most of which I did, but chose to either defer or play 'wait and see'. In hindsight, they're all things that I should have taken care of first.
The most serious involve the brake / ABS sensor lines and trackbar. I should've ordered an adjustable trackbar (more futureproof than relocating the stock one) to go with the rest of the parts, period, as well as extended brake lines front and rear. Right now the axle's shifted about half-an-inch to the driver's side; not deathly out-of-spec, but enough that it counts. The LCA and UCA bushings should also have been replaced in advance. They needed it, and going higher only made the issue more noticeable. But the brake lines are the big one: I can deal with the iffy front handling by being careful, but right now I can't do anything that involves large amounts of flex because the brake lines are basically acting as limit straps for the axle. Removing the ABS sensor lines from their bracket mounts and loosely zip-tying them to the brake lines gave enough extra travel to at least keep them free and easy, but they don't do a whole lot of good if the brake lines have destroyed themselves under flex and are leaking fluid.
Moving on a bit: tires. I ended up going with a set of take-off Rubicon Moab rims with the stock TJ-spec Goodyear MT/Ses on them in 245/75-R16 (effectively 30.5"). Once they were on I also changed out the speedo drive gear per the writeup at Go-Jeep's website; this was probably the easiest job of all, taking only about 10 minutes and resulting in a speedo that's consistently accurate (corrected against GPS) to within 0.5 to 1.5mph across the speed range. However, the new tyres further magnified the front handling issues. I attribute this to their stiffer sidewalls as well as possible overinflation; at least the pressures are easily dealt with. The rest I'll just have to tolerate.
So... Driving impressions? It's hard to say since I can't really hit the dirt right now, and the front end's so out of whack that I can't give a fair impression of on-road manners. However, I can say this: as a general impression, the springs are stiffer than stock but the shocks are softer. We'll see how it works out over time once the handling and lines are sorted out, but I'm optimistic at this point.
Now for the most important part of all this: the advice and assistance I received from people who know what they're doing when it comes to lifting an XJ - particularly Ron (Captain Ron) and Avery (Cracker). Without their knowledge, experience, and willingness to help, none of this ever would have come to fruition. This also includes my buddy Drew, and Ron's friend Robert, both of whom contributed huge amounts of effort to this project. I can safely say that without everyone's help this never would have happened as it did, and I'm sincerely grateful to them for everything they did to make sure that this was seen through. My advice to anyone about to be in the same position: find people who know what they're doing and listen to them. I wish I'd sought more of their advice on some things before getting into this; it would've made things easier in the long run.
So that's about it. I've probably left some stuff out that will likely get filled in later, but hopefully this will give anyone else who's a complete noobie to doing this sort of work the benefit of not having to repeat my mistakes.
A couple of things I'd like to make clear at this point: I'm neither endorsing nor deriding a particular set of components in any of this, nor am I making any claims as to whether or not any of what I'm saying will apply to your particular circumstances. I'm also not writing a 'howto'; there are plenty of threads already here detailing that side of things. However, I will cover some of the caveats we ran into in the installation process, many of which are things that someone doing the same job could expect to encounter.
After some sporadic test driving of various lifted XJs out there, I settled on a hybrid version of the OME 3" Kit from DPG Offroad. When I say 'hybrid', I mean that some changes were made to the spec from the standard kit: the XJ front coils were substituted for ZJ units, and an add-a-leaf was ordered for the rear leaf packs. Although this would change the on-road manners of the suspension quite a bit, I was willing to compromise ride quality a bit in exchange for better load capacity on the occasions when I need to carry heavy stuff.
Knowing the propensity for lifted XJs to experience severe driveline vibes due to increased pinion and U-joint angles, an SYE and rear driveshaft (by High Angle Driveline) were also ordered from DPG Offroad. I'm a firm believer in patronising businesses that offer good customer service, and Dirk's is absolutely second-to-none. Extended U-bolts and 4-degree axle shims (from Rubicon Express) were also ordered from him at the same time. So here's what the parts list looked like so far:
Suspension:
* 2 OME Shocks (N35)
* 2 OME Shocks (N36)
* 2 OME Coil springs (934)
* 2 OME Leaf Springs (C5034RA)
* 2 OME Add-a-leafs (D22XL)
* 1 Set JKS Quicker Disconnects (part of the lift kit package)
* 1 Set DPG Disconnect Cables (part of the lift kit package)
Driveline:
* 1 Rubicon Express hack-and-tap SYE (RE1807)
* 1 Set 4-degree axle shims (RE1467)
* 1 Set extended U-bolts (RE1220)
* 1 Driveshaft from High Angle Driveline
Random stuff:
* New Upper and Lower Control Arm bushings
* New leaf spring bushings
Prep to put all of the above on began about two weeks in advance, during which time pretty much every fastener that had to be removed was hit with PB Blaster. In the 14 days leading up to this, I went through six cans of the stuff and still missed some things. If you're in any doubt as to whether or not it needs penetrant, SPRAY IT. I missed stuff that would definitely have benefitted from it - not that this was necessarily fatal, but it meant that things that should've taken less time took longer to complete.
We elected to start with the rear: it required somewhat lesser effort, and would leave the XJ more driveable in case the job couldn't be finished in one day (which indeed turned out to be the case). To prep for this, certain things were done in advance: the add-a-leafs were put into the rear springs, and the new bushings pressed in. First mistake (but it was at least a small one): the degree shims weren't fitted in advance. Other than that, the install went more or less as planned, if slowly. Part of this was down to the fact that Drew and I were completely new to doing the work involved, but also due to the Jeep having lived the first three years of its life in Northern Michigan. Stuff was just rusted on and required a lot of persuasion to remove, even with the PB Blaster.
Moving on to day two and the front suspension, there were three main things that caused problems. The first and most annoying was removing the driver's side shock absorber: it unbolted fine at the bottom, but with the additional complications of the ABS pump and brake lines in the way was a real pain to remove. The solution: remove the airbox and get an open-end wrench onto it; this gave enough swing to be able to unbolt it from the top. I won't even get into the methods we tried to use to remove the shock before figuring this out - just suffice to say that they weren't pretty or effective.
The next issue with the front involved the pins connecting the lower end of the swaybar links to the frame. They took pounding to get out, and by saying 'pounding' I'm seriously understating the issue. However, without removing them the disconnects couldn't be installed, so it was absolutely essential that they were removed. Muscle and persistence were key.
Less annoying was the length available from the brake lines and ABS sensor wiring: with the axle at full droop it was necessary to max them both out by putting weight (i.e., standing on the axle) on the appropriate side; this was an issue even with the brake lines relocated and straightened. Again, not fatal, but made putting the coils on more difficult than it should've been.
At this point, the job's basically finished. Note that there's no mention of the SYE or driveshaft in any of that - I got lucky, and it looks like the degree shims basically cancelled out any major vibes. There are some light ones at approximately 10, 40, and 80mph (a good sign - since they're all multiples of each other, this means they're happening in the same harmonic range), but nothing violent. For now I'm on the stock driveshaft with no SYE; your mileage will almost certainly vary on this. For now, I'm keeping them laying around just in case future changes require them.
Having been lucky on the vibes and calling the job done might make it seem like everything's all kittens and rainbows. However, there are a few things that still need to be done. All of this falls into the category of 'if I'd known in advance' - most of which I did, but chose to either defer or play 'wait and see'. In hindsight, they're all things that I should have taken care of first.
The most serious involve the brake / ABS sensor lines and trackbar. I should've ordered an adjustable trackbar (more futureproof than relocating the stock one) to go with the rest of the parts, period, as well as extended brake lines front and rear. Right now the axle's shifted about half-an-inch to the driver's side; not deathly out-of-spec, but enough that it counts. The LCA and UCA bushings should also have been replaced in advance. They needed it, and going higher only made the issue more noticeable. But the brake lines are the big one: I can deal with the iffy front handling by being careful, but right now I can't do anything that involves large amounts of flex because the brake lines are basically acting as limit straps for the axle. Removing the ABS sensor lines from their bracket mounts and loosely zip-tying them to the brake lines gave enough extra travel to at least keep them free and easy, but they don't do a whole lot of good if the brake lines have destroyed themselves under flex and are leaking fluid.
Moving on a bit: tires. I ended up going with a set of take-off Rubicon Moab rims with the stock TJ-spec Goodyear MT/Ses on them in 245/75-R16 (effectively 30.5"). Once they were on I also changed out the speedo drive gear per the writeup at Go-Jeep's website; this was probably the easiest job of all, taking only about 10 minutes and resulting in a speedo that's consistently accurate (corrected against GPS) to within 0.5 to 1.5mph across the speed range. However, the new tyres further magnified the front handling issues. I attribute this to their stiffer sidewalls as well as possible overinflation; at least the pressures are easily dealt with. The rest I'll just have to tolerate.
So... Driving impressions? It's hard to say since I can't really hit the dirt right now, and the front end's so out of whack that I can't give a fair impression of on-road manners. However, I can say this: as a general impression, the springs are stiffer than stock but the shocks are softer. We'll see how it works out over time once the handling and lines are sorted out, but I'm optimistic at this point.
Now for the most important part of all this: the advice and assistance I received from people who know what they're doing when it comes to lifting an XJ - particularly Ron (Captain Ron) and Avery (Cracker). Without their knowledge, experience, and willingness to help, none of this ever would have come to fruition. This also includes my buddy Drew, and Ron's friend Robert, both of whom contributed huge amounts of effort to this project. I can safely say that without everyone's help this never would have happened as it did, and I'm sincerely grateful to them for everything they did to make sure that this was seen through. My advice to anyone about to be in the same position: find people who know what they're doing and listen to them. I wish I'd sought more of their advice on some things before getting into this; it would've made things easier in the long run.
So that's about it. I've probably left some stuff out that will likely get filled in later, but hopefully this will give anyone else who's a complete noobie to doing this sort of work the benefit of not having to repeat my mistakes.
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