extended rear drive shaft question??

so im planning on putting a used 6in rusty's lift kit on my 89 jeep cherokee, I know i will need a sye and extended drive shaft.

Im wondering how extended it will need to be? I know someone selling a 33 1/4 "long drive shaft and stock they are 31 1/2 so should that work?

thanks

Which stock driveshaft is 31.5"? you need a CV driveshaft when you put on a SYE....a lot of people use a front DS from an 89-01 XJ w/ AW4.

However, 6" of lift is pushing the limits of that, so you might want one from a ZJ...

http://www.crownautomotive.net/catalog/axle/propeller_shafts2.html

this tells you the collapsed lengths - you'd probably want to go with the longest CV shaft you can find out of a ZJ...

ZJ 96/98 4.0 33.500 w/ 249 52099260

IIRC when I ordered mine, it was around 34-35 " at 5.5" I'll go measure if needed.

well i was going to try the drive shaft with an extended slip yoke before i bought a sye kit..

ive been told by alot of people on here that I need an sye and extended drive shaft

then ive been told i can get away with not using one..

im trying to figure out the cheapest way to deal with this because i dont really want to spend 500 bucks on a sye and driveshaft

On my father-in-law's (trail only) XJ, we ended up with about 5.5" of lift. The Jee was originally 2wd so we had the shaft cut down to fit. A buddy cut & welded it for $30 for us so we thought it was a good deal, it's still working a year later & he is not light on the skinny pedal either...

so u dont have sye or anything eh?

If you don't have much money just drop the t-case. Not the best solution, but it will work. You can also get a longer slip yoke from a YJ to help with u-joint clearance and driveline length.

If you're going to go to the trouble and expense of an SYE, you might as well spend the money and do it right. Whatever $$ you spend trying to make a standard driveline work is money you could have put towards a CV driveline, which is what you'll end up doing down the road anyway, then whatever you spend now on another driveline will be wasted money.

Save a bit and do it right.

so I should just wait untill I can afford a SYE and drive shaft

Yes!There are many benefits of a SYE that often get overlooked.Strength if you go HD(and you should because they are cheap),you can lose a DS w/o losing your fluid,vibes(if your trying to solve that issue),most important is actual u-joint angles.With a CV shaft you get to roll the pumpkin up(a definate help in pumpkin/pinion clearance) and reduce the u-joint angles to a reasonable range.
Another benfit(at least on both my rigs) is that w/ the HD units the driveshafts can be swapped front to rear and vise-versa!