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Long arms only?

goodburbon

goodburbon

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Westcliffe Colorado.
do any of the manufacturers sell just the long arms? I dont need the whole 1500 dollar kit, I already have the lift, I am just tired of getting beat to death.

Also I saw an xj this morning with a LA kit on it, and there were no UCAs, is this the norm?, the caster just changes with the location of the axle without UCAs, it had adjustable arms holding the caster angle, so any changes in ride height, AKA my friends big fat ass in the passenger seat, and my caster is off and the jeep will be prone to wander. is that the way everyone does it? it looked cool, but it didnt look right.
 
Carolina Rock Shop in Charlotte, NC will sell you just the longarm set up. Theirs is a radius arm design using RE uppers and includes a beefy crossmember to mount it all up. Price is excellent too. I will be ordering mine shortly. Contact Andy, Jeff, or Will at 704-525-5109 for pricing.
 
650 with adjustable uca's from carolina, weld on kit
899 from tnt, with a crossmember and a helluva lot of bolts thru the frame

Carolina were perhaps a bit confused about the whole pinion angle thing though, told me that with the UCAs mounted to the Long arms, the pinion angle did not change with articulation. that is......not....accurate. the reason the stock arms mount to seperate points is to maintain pinion angle throughout the axles arc as the suspension cycles. with them both ultimately rotating around the same point, as the angle of your long arm changes, the pinion angle, which is directly proportional to the long arm angle, will change as well.

the long arms appear, however to have a large enough radius to minimize the arc length , and therefore they dont break u-joints. esp since the pinion is always facing the t-case.


the guy with Carolina was very friendly though.
 
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I think with the exception of FullTraction, everyone that makes long-arms for XJ's offers just the long-arm upgrade... RE, RockKrawler, CRSU, Clayton's, Rusty's, T&T Customs, Teraflex... Not sure about Tomken though. I also don't believe that you can get SkyJacker's mid-arm setup as a stand-alone kit, I think you have to buy the complete RockReady system.
 
Danno said:
make your own long arms. They are easy to do.
Click to expand...

Sure, if you've got the equipment, supplies, time, and skills to build something that's not going to break apart on the road or trail.
 
I have done some more thinking on the subject, and the design is flawed. as the axle articulates the lack of UCAs with seperate frame attachment points causes the axle housing itself to twist, or the unibody, whichever has the least resistiance to the stresses introduced.

what are the long term effects on the xj from these "Systems" are any axle tubes seperating from differential housings after long term use? what about stress tears in the flimsy poop they chose to form a "frame" out of.

I want the ride quality of the long arm system, but I am not gonna spend 600-1000$ on someones ill concieved plan that is just going to slowly degrade the structural integrity of my jeep. granted it will take a long time to tear a hole in my "frame" or twist a tube off, but I want to keep this thing, for at least 30 years.
 
30years? you better do some major reinforcement now, or just not wheel it. you gonna lift the white one?
 
goodburbon said:
Carolina were perhaps a bit confused about the whole pinion angle thing though, told me that with the UCAs mounted to the Long arms, the pinion angle did not change with articulation. that is......not....accurate. the reason the stock arms mount to seperate points is to maintain pinion angle throughout the axles arc as the suspension cycles. with them both ultimately rotating around the same point, as the angle of your long arm changes, the pinion angle, which is directly proportional to the long arm angle, will change as well.

the long arms appear, however to have a large enough radius to minimize the arc length , and therefore they dont break u-joints. esp since the pinion is always facing the t-case.
Click to expand...

I think you might be confusing the pinion angle with caster as it will change as the long arms move through their arc of movement, but it wont be enough to notice or harm anything. The angle of the pinion in relation to the driveshaft at the axle will not change or at least not enough to cause a problem. The angle of the driveshaft at the t-case end will change as the axle articulates but again its not enough to cause a problem. I have a set of Carolina Rock Shop long arms and have had them for about 4 years now and have had no issues with the unibody or axle breakage from the long arms. There will be increased wear on the UCA bushings but they are cheap to replace and not that difficult to do.

If you can get the unibody of the XJ to last 30 with the stress of offroad use I will be impressed. I give my XJ 15 years of offroad usage before I expect to see it start to break down and cause "frame" problems. They are cheap enough to replace the shell, just swap your drivetrain over from the old shell.

AARON
 
not till the wife is done with it, and yeah, I am gonna reinforce it,. dont wanna mess with the white one just yet, its gettin 20 mpg at 80 on the interstate. 30 years isnt that long on a vehicle that doesnt see everyday use. there are lots of 20 year old xjs out there already, whats another 10.

I said 30 years not 3 billion miles. just rust proof, armor, and TLC will get it there. I know it wouldnt make it that long as a dd.
 
caster angle and pinion angle, for the purposes of this arguement, are the same thing. as the axle rotates forward and back both change, causing the steering to fight the ground at full extension, and pointing the pinion at a higher angle away from straight., but this is all minimized by the legnth of the arms.

the pinion will always point toward the t-case, this will be compensated for by the stock cv joint. without a cv joint it would be an issue, as it stands it is not. I was premature in voicing my concerns over that point.

my real concern is still with the arms trying to force the axle to twist.

anyone been using a fixed angle long arm setup longer than 4 years?

thanks for the input aaron,

Iknow the chances are that I will total the thing before 30 years is up.
 
RE's radius arm long-arm kit for TJ's has been out for a number of years now, and is still probably the most popular long-arm kit you'll find. Unless you run massive amounts of wheel travel and wheel it often, the stresses in the real world aren't enough to cause any major issues.

Also, search, here and in the TJ forum on JU if you're registered there. This exact subject has been covered many times.
 
They are not the same, castor angle is in reference to the ground being a constant zero. pinion angle is in reference to the drive shaft wich and the angle of the drive shaft changes porportionantly to the angle of the pinion (if the lengths are equal) so theguys from Carolina that told you that the pinion angle does not chage were corect and you should apologize asap.
:paperwork
 
I was apparently misled on pinion angle, I thought it was relative to the ground, which would make sense to me, because fi you set it to the driveshaft it will change its angle with the load you put on the suspension, so filling up your gas tank changes your pinion angle. I looked all over the web and that is apparently how it is defined. still makes no sense to me, but I do owe the boys at carolina an apology.

now I have a beef with the measurement system, see what you've done!
now just for the hell of it, what if I were doing a frame up build, do I wait till I have the whole thing built, and the family in the back seat before I weld the perches on the axles? what about gas, 20 gallons is somewhere on the order of 120#. that is sufficient to lower a vehicle and change the pinion angle.

I apologize, in the eyes of this definition the pinion angle hardly changes. and I humbly retract my earlier statements of the shops confusion, it was indeed I who was confused.
 
well, the rear is leaf sprung, so it behaves slightly differently than the front in regards to pinion angle. For the rear, you want to set the pinion slightly below the angle of the DS (assuming SYE and double-cardan DS) because under power the leafs will wrap a bit and let the pinion rotate up some. I think the recommendation is like 2-3* below the angle of the DS.
 
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