Upper Control Arm hits engine?

I just got back from 'wheeling with my friend who has a "new" 1988 XJ . The previous owner(s) put 170k miles on it for him assgas:

He's new to 4x4's so I was giving him a tour of his undercarriage and repairing a badly adjusted transfer case shift linkage, when I noticed this:



The passenger side upper control arm is hitting both the trans cooler lines and the engine itself!

The suspension bumpstops on both sides are in good shape, and the suspension is 100% stock.

What are the most likely parts that could be out-of-whack? motor mounts? track bar?

something that lets the suspension travel too far is probably weak, like the coil springs. this must have been bottomed out hard to do this. if the trans lines are pinched, you should replace them so you dont overheat the trans.

if the track bar or other suspension components were bent, it would make your steering wheel off center.

I would say the track bar is bent, This would cause the axle to move. You would also notice that the wheels are no longer sittingin the center of the wheelarches but are off set towards one side.

This is a WAG (wild a** guess), but on our Dodge pickup the engine mounts/bushings have deteriorated sufficient that the engine settle so that the fan blade hits the bottom of the shroud. Is it possible that your engine mounts/bushings have allowed the engine to drop slightly? I'd check it, just to be sure.

As I said, this is a wild guess, so use this advice at your own risk.

I believe this is a fairly common problem especially if you like air time. I cut off my hard tranny cooler lines and replaced them with some tube from the auto parts store. I double clamped the repair section just in case. Has been holding for weeks now with no signs of leakage. I know that many people have done this after pinching those lines. I pinched mine with 5" of lift so I imagine I came down pretty dang hard to do that but I have never felt the front end bottom out. I would suppose the best course of action would be to elongate your bumpstop or do the hockey puck inside the coil trick. I am afraid I cannot shed any light on why this happens but perhaps its just one of those factory interference issues.

This is true.

Replace with rubber and get on with life. Bumpstops need lengthening or slow down before you hit a big dip.

As far as I'm concerned, any XJ that hasn't had it's tranny lines crushed or mangled, is an XJ that hasn't been used to it's potential.

staticrevolution said:

I believe this is a fairly common problem especially if you like air time. I cut off my hard tranny cooler lines and replaced them with some tube from the auto parts store. I am afraid I cannot shed any light on why this happens but perhaps its just one of those factory interference issues.

Click to expand...

ok, cool - this is what I wanted to hear.

To clarify, the guy who has it now (my friend) is a new owner of the vehicle, and I've told him repeatedly that jumping is strictly for people who can afford to fix broken stuff. he can't afford it. :greensmok

So, i guess the previous owner was a bit more mean to the truck than we had already guessed (truck has minor dings in exhaust, scratches on diffs, and a bent LCA mount) - OK, I'll tell the current owner to replace the hardlines with soft, and we'll put slightly longer bumpstops in place when we do the lift.

Thanks for the advice eace: