XJ Front Midarm 3 Link Build

So I decided to upgrade my crappy rustys short arm kit that i purchased a few years ago. I wanted something that won't bind, gives me good down travel, a better more solid ride and something that isn't the typical radius arm all the cherokee guys run.

I bought 7/8" hiems for the single upper from Ruffstuff and will be using 1.5" .120 wall DOM. The upper will be sleeved at the ends with 1.75" .120 tubing to help with strenth.

For the lowers I have bought ballastic 2.63" flex joints for the axle end. I am using stock rubber bushings for the frameside to keep the ride good and they flex more then poly. I will be making the lowers out of 1/4" plate and the design is kind of confusing so you just have to wait till I build them and take pics.

All the brackets are 1/4" and can run either 7.5, 8.5, or 9.5 inches of seperation. The new lower brackets will give me about an inch of extra clearance under the axle.

So far I have taken the axle off along with the control arms, steering, shocks, ect. I have the axle on the table ready to cut the old stuff off and weld the new stuff on. I still have to work on bracket for the frame side. Hopefull i will be done by Wednsday but we will see.

I will post pictures in a second....

On with the pics....

Some brackets i have cut


With the joints




Upper axle side mount


7/8" hiem compared to a 3/4"


Old and new parts


Axle dropped


Axle off


Dana 30 sitting on the table

Update...

Got the upper and lower control arm brackets off the axle. I still have to clean up the lowers. I cleaned up the where the passengerside upper mount was and mocked up the new bracket. I also made a template for the truss so i can cut it out when i get home from work. Do you guys think the seals will be ok welding the truss and driverside lower control arm bracket on?

Nice start! Looks great so far.

Thanks man. Hopefully I will make some more progress tonight.

Saw this on pirate, cant wait to see how it turns out.

just one piece of advice, make sure your upper mount on the axle side is located so that it will clear the oil pan and tranny lines, i already had my axle under the jeep before i messed with that mount, im glad i did, because where i had originally wanted to put it, it would have hit the tranny lines:eyes:

MG2000XJ said:

Saw this on pirate, cant wait to see how it turns out.

Click to expand...

Thanks

bgwyllys61 said:

just one piece of advice, make sure your upper mount on the axle side is located so that it will clear the oil pan and tranny lines, i already had my axle under the jeep before i messed with that mount, im glad i did, because where i had originally wanted to put it, it would have hit the tranny lines:eyes:

Click to expand...

Yeah it should be ok where it is. I am going to build everything with the axle at full compression to make sure though. Thanks for the advice!

no problem, i hope everything works out, definately a good start, and nice to see someone else doing this to a post 97 as well:guitar:

Started on taking the original mounts off. Big PITA!

On with another update....

Got the Lower control arm mounts tacked on the axle along with the upper and truss. Bringing the axle to my buddies house tonight so he can weld it with his 220 instead of me welding it with my 110. Also got the passangerside lower control arm mount cleaned up last night.









Even with the LCA mounts below the center line i still have good clearance.



What a B*tch to remove!

Where do you plan on attaching the frame side of the upper arm, how high and how far back? Are you raising the axle end mount?

John

Sorry for the lack of updates. I got tired of posting up pictures right away but do have some to post up when I put them on my computer. So far I have now all I have to do is get some metal for the lower control arms today and weld them up. I have been going back a forth on what material I want to use for the lowers. I would really like to use 1.75" .25 DOM but can't find any locally without paying for 20 feet. I only need 4 feet. I may just buy some square 2" .25 wall tubing becuase I can get that at any lenth.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
While you are at it, make sure to add some skids to the axle LCA brackets.

lazyxj said:

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
While you are at it, make sure to add some skids to the axle LCA brackets.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I didn't do a full skid but i did box the front a little. I wanted the most clearance i could. If I boxed the whole thing I would lose another inch underneath because i would have to leave room for the flex joint to move.

ok so heres a few pics of progress last week. Sorry no recent ones. I have run into a problem though. I screwed up one of the Flex joints and im thinking just buying heims for the lowers. That way i will get some adjustablity and i can't F them up. I think 7/8" heims will be fine. I do wheel on rocks but I don't bash it to hard. I know the ride will be a little rougher but I dont mind as long as it wont rip the brackets off using all hard joints. Please let me know what yall think.

Scott welding the brackets on.



Passenger side frame bracket







Upper control arm. This is the color of the springs and control arms. a little darker then in the picture. Looks really nice.

Update.
I got more heims in today and went to Olivers Custom Drive Shaft to get some tubing. 1.75 .25" wall DOM is hard to come by so I used 1.5 .120 wall and sleeved it with 1.75 .120 wall. Very happy with how the links turned out. Tomorrow I just need to make new shock mounts and reinforce a couple areas and I will be good to go.

LCA Heims



Tubing



Tubing bungs welded on to inner tubing



1.75 .120 DOM slid over



All welded up and painted

I finished the syspension up today! All I have to do now is redo the exhaust and i will be good for a text drive.

looks nice

Thanks. I cant wait to test it.