HP D30 In An 01 XJ?

In a pickle at the moment.

Have a 2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport.

The front driver side coil bucket and sway bar bracket rusted out and snapped off of the axle. The jeep sits about 3" low on the driver side now. Makes a terrible grinding noise when turning or braking.

I have a HP D30 with the same gears out of my other jeep. I need to know with stock ride height if my driveshaft will actually hit my exhaust?

Driveshafts are the same between 99 and 00-01 correct?

This is my dd. No wheeling. No Flexing. Just paved roads.

I could pull the coil out and fab up a new bracket and weld it on but i'm not sure if that's the right route either. I can do a bunch of stuff i'm just not sure what's the quickest and best option right now.

I could also get the bracket were it should be and weld it back to hold it temporarily.

Any ideas?

Pictures don't do it justice. The pictures of the bracket broken off are with the jeep in the air on a lift. The pictures of the exhaust are with the jeep on the ground.

My wife's 00 has a 97 HP d30 in it. No driveshaft issues. She's on 3" lift

kmanxj5050 said:

My wife's 00 has a 97 HP d30 in it. No driveshaft issues. She's on 3" lift

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How far away is it from hitting with 3" of lift?

I'm contemplating just swapping the entire axle over because the passenger side is totally rusted out and about to give out at any second now.

I seem to recall someone I know/knew doing the same thing, bone stock xj. I believe it all went fine....can't remember 100% though.
On a side note, those pics make me glad I don't live in one of the snow/salt states....holy rotten metal, batman! :shiver:

It will work fine. I've done it on a stock 00 before the lift went on.

Remind me never to move north!

Axle out.

so glad i left that shithole lol

That's some serious rust.

First you'll need to scrape the barnacles or she'll never be seaworthy again.

This jeep sat for two years before i bought it. PO thought it has a blown headgasket and sold it to me for $500. It's been my dd ever since my other jeep literally blew a transfer case out onto the highway.

For $500 i can't complain. Have to deal with the rust and fix things when they break. It's to be expected. Most of the body is actually rust free with just little specs every here and there. The things that were really rusty were all the suspension parts and everything under the body. Axles, exhaust, leaf springs, etc.

Anyways got the HP D30 into this thing about an hour ago. Just took the thing for a test ride and everything is fine and dandy until i hit the breaks. A slow push on the pedal and only braking like 1/8 of the pedal is fine but anything more and it starts making this weird noise.

I thought it was the nose end diving causing the driveshaft to hit the exhaust but once i got back to the shop i creeped under there and don't see any marks from it hitting. No idea what it could be.

There is plenty of room under there from what i can see for this axle to be totally fine but something is wonky.

Needless to say i have a million jeep parts in my backyard. Just no LP D30.

Here's the said noise.

Happens when braking and hitting bumps. Now i'm thinking driveshaft again.

Also noticed that when i get to about 60MPH the front starts to shake now. I can't feel it in the wheel or actually feel it but i can hear like my dashboard start vibrating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwENOSSSBSA

Does that jeep have abs?
That sounded exactly like what my Cadillac did when braking hard, it was the abs computer freaking out. The next owner reflashed the computer and the problem went away, but she replaced all her brake lines too...

And was Matt sleeping the whole time ? Haha

That sounds a helluva lot like my exhaust hitting my pinion yoke, and like nothing else I can think of.
60 mph is the prime speed range for any tire balance issues to show up. Call me crazy, but that could just be a small change in balance with the tires put on a different axle. The rotor & hub make a difference, too - enough that "on car tire balancing" is a thing.

travisk said:

First you'll need to scrape the barnacles or she'll never be seaworthy again.

Click to expand...

That is priceless, and exactly what I was thinking. Looks like sunken shipwreck!

WarGin said:

Does that jeep have abs?
That sounded exactly like what my Cadillac did when braking hard, it was the abs computer freaking out. The next owner reflashed the computer and the problem went away, but she replaced all her brake lines too...

And was Matt sleeping the whole time ? Haha

Click to expand...

No. No ABS.

Not the whole time. Haha.

yossarian19 said:

That sounds a helluva lot like my exhaust hitting my pinion yoke, and like nothing else I can think of.
60 mph is the prime speed range for any tire balance issues to show up. Call me crazy, but that could just be a small change in balance with the tires put on a different axle. The rotor & hub make a difference, too - enough that "on car tire balancing" is a thing.

Click to expand...

That's what i was thinking. It just sounds too much like a pinion hitting the exhaust. I'll pull the shaft if i don't see any wear marks today and see if that is the problem.

If that is my problem what do you think my solution should be? Just pound the exhaust in some to get it to clear?

Hmmm. My HP D30 had the wheel studs out of one of the Driveworks hub bearings missing. I had to swap one of the hubs off the LP D30 onto my HP D30.

That hub went on the passenger side. The side i think the vibrations are from. Think i should warranty out that driveworks hub and swap another one on and see if it helps?

I also didn't get an alignment. Steering wheel is still straight and it drives fine.

The only other thing i can think of and this is thinking out of the box is that i bent my tie rod like an 1/8" of an inch or so. When i was tightening the swaybay back on i had to hold that barbed bolt with vice grips to get it to pull the barbs into the swaybar mount while i impacted the nut on. The vicegrips got jammed up against the tie rod without me noticing and it took a bit of force to remove them.

You can not use the unit bearing for the lp30 on the hp30 unless you swap the rotor as well. There is a difference in height between the bearings. That is your problem

RoyalXJ said:

You can not use the unit bearing for the lp30 on the hp30 unless you swap the rotor as well. There is a difference in height between the bearings. That is your problem

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Please pinpoint my mistake please.

I think, and i could be wrong, that my other cherokee that the HP D30 came out of was a 99.5+ cherokee and had the taller hat on the hubs. So i believe both of the hubs are the same except ones a factory hub and ones a driveworks.

I put new rotors on the jeep last night as well. Bought rotors for an 01 cherokee.

I need all 01 cherokee parts for this, correct? I should probably go check to make sure the hubs and what have you are the same year.

You need all 00-01 parts or all older. Just make sure all the years match. 99.5 never came with an hp 30

Lay the old and new side by side and check.