will 1997 wrangler tj front suspention work

i need to know will 1997 tj 3" front suspention work on my 1985 XJ i have a free lift if it will work, i know i will need to get an add-a-leaf set for the rear and or shackles, but will the front work. my money just got really tight!!!!! and i need ideas so i can get it rolling again. thanks
Troy

Most of the front end parts are the same between tj and xj. If you are asking about just the springs then yes they will work with no modification. The shocks are different lengths though. Also the cherokee's are a bit lighter so you may see a tad more lift. I would not recomend AAL for the rear they are stiff as hell and will start to sag quickly. If you can put up with a stiff ride and plan to upgrade it will work though.

Since the front springs on a stock TJ are 2" shorter than an XJ (IIRC), the 3" springs will only give you about 1" of lift, which a shackle in the rear would easily balance out.

nhrocker said:

Since the front springs on a stock TJ are 2" shorter than an XJ (IIRC), the 3" springs will only give you about 1" of lift, which a shackle in the rear would easily balance out.

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you can not judge lift by the lengh of the springs. There are two other factors that come into play first is how thick the wire or spring is, second is how many wraps it has. There is a calculator out there used to figure out spring rate which is what we are talking about. If you go to the RE website and look at just the coils the xj and tj have the same part #'s for the same height lift.

As I mentioned, I was just going off of memory for the stock height springs, but you're right. The number of wraps and thickness do make a difference, not just the "stock" height.

However, I thought the comment about the RE springs didn't make sense since I've seen their 3" lift coils for XJs and TJs and they seemed to me to have different heights. I checked the site and they actually are NOT the same numbers. The XJ 3" coils are #RE 1300 and the TJ 3" coils are #RE 1363. I don't have the specs to tell what the exact differences are, but at least the numbers are not the same.