Lifting issue

Ok so i picked up my jeep saturday night. '87 4-door. 4.0L 5 speed manual. It spent a LOT of time sitting somewhere. I came up on a 3" Rancho lift last night.

I started @ the back tonight. Yanked off one side, loosened the next. I still have the stock suspension from my Titan & it turns out my stock Titan shackles are a perfect fit & upgrade for the Cherokee! So I decide to swap out shackles.

Thats where i came into my big problem. Everything was soaked in WD40. Everything came off without an issue - except 2 bolts. The top shackle bolts were a serious pain.

The passenger side was a serious fight. Started working on the driver side while the other bolt soaked in more WD40. Once the initial release, the bolt backed off easy for about 1/8". It started getting tougher to remove, then SNAP! Luckily, it broke where I was still able to pop the shackle off.

Decided since i already had 1 broken bolt, which wasn't even that big of a fight, id go ahead and snap the other bolt as well.. That damn thing was a fight till the last thread. It creaked and popped and i thought for sure it was gonna break each twist but it actually pulled out.

So I have portion of a bolt that i need to remove from the nut that is concealed within the frame..... Tapping & backing it the rest of the way, I believe, isn't an option. The bolt already snapped trying to do that. The only other option i could come up with is cutting into the frame, removing the bolt by twisting it clockwise with vise grips and then patching the hole i cut in ghe frame...

Anybody got a better idea? Maybe somebody thats had this happen already? I read something about shackle relocating, but if i recall that was for a long travel setup & I can't afford that yet. This thing doesn't even have any lockers yet! Hah.

Also, the back bushings for the new leaf springs are a big haggard. I'm sure I can search & find an answer for that, but i thought id ask since im already starting a new thread.

Anyways sorry this is so long winded... Even after i edited out a lot of rambling lol. Thanks in advance!
- Mike

DezertTitan said:

Tapping & backing it the rest of the way, I believe, isn't an option.

Click to expand...

Dont even try it, Just cut a hole in the floor of the "bed" eara.

Mine did that on my first xj and I drilled it out then re-tapped the nut now I soak everything in pb blaster for days

In mod tech you can find a lot of posts about the same problem and the solutions since your looking for ideas

So I'm not the only person with this issue.... Feel like a dipshit for starting a new thread without searching, but such is life.

I picked up the steel to cut up & fab up the boxes to relocate the shackles. Decided for easier access id go ahead & trim/fold my rear qp's first. Had to remove the rear bumper to do that since the torx screws to pull the endcaps were stripped & I didn't want to screw with cutting them off.

So bumper comes off & I see the broken shackle bolt through that tiny window in the back of the frame. A light turned on in my head....! Cut open the window with a damn sawzaw! Rather than cutting into the frame & patching it, I cut into the "cap". Got at the bolt with some channel locks & the damn thing moved easily... But got tight after backing out 1/4". Went forward & it locked up @ the break.

So i trimmed off the bolt @ the first exposed thread, removing the bits that were deformed & tweaked from breaking. Started twisting the bolt through the nut and it came right out! Damn!

Well tomorrow I'm going to buy some new bolts & install the back end of the lift, then work on the front. Should have this bitch running this weekend! I'll build shackle relocators another day when i go with a bigger lift... For now, 31" tires, ~3" lift is plenty!

4 brand new ES9000 shocks arrived in the mail today so I'm pretty excited. I know, cheap shocks, should have got at least 5150s.... I'll do that when i get 33"s, regear & install my d44 & go with a 5ish" lift... These shocks are for 4 & under. They are "temporary"

the es9000s ride pretty good for how cheap they are. just keep the speed down in the dirt and they'll last for quite awhile they don't dissipate heat very well and its pretty easy to burn em up.

13 posts, and im lovin where this build is going! welcome to the site. dont mind the search comments, im glad you brought this up.

Thanks Grim, they are just temporary tho so if they burn they burn... Tho I wont be going fast since i yanked both sway bars lol. I do hope to recover some $$ on these to put towards 5150s.

Thanks for the welcome xcm. So long as I keep making $$ I'll keep building this. Already have plans for it... I don't mind the search comments... Just i didn't think to search about the shackle bolt breaking issue. I tossed in the bushing question, I'm sure i could find answers for that if i searched but i figured id add it since i was already startin a thread.

Lift goes on either tonight or tomorrow... Gotta pick up square tubing for rock sliders next

I blew my es9000s out the first time out, but i tend to be a little hard on my jeep (see the vid in my sig lol) they were great for 6 months or so of driving the XJ every day but they didn't like the trip to glamis I got em so hot the seal on the bottom melted and was oozing out around the shaft. that was a couple years ago i never bothered getting new ones just kept beating on em lol. now the shafts look like chrome exhaust pipes, all discolored and rainbowed.