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rear driveshaft swaps

me79xj99

NAXJA Forum User
i work at a jeep dealer and have been looking at other jeeps wondering about doing more stuff to mine. the ? is has anybody ever tried useing a grand cherokee rear shaft inplace of an xj shaft? of acouple i measured the zj rear shaft is about 4.5" longer than my 99 xj, the wj rear shaft is about 2.5" longer than mine. I was thinking if the wj shaft might be a cheap fix instead of buying sye shafts. i have a 4.5" lift on my xj and a 1" t-case drop and the drop has to go cuz i'm hiting it quite a bit when out playing. i'll probaly have to change u-joints to make it all go together but that minor. thanks.
 
So the wj shaft has a slip yoke????
 
the wj's have slip yokes on them and have a small harmonic dampener on the shaft right infront of the front ujoint. I measured from joint cap to joint cap and figured on going back to my xj yoke (not sure if splines would be the same even though they both have 242 cases) i'm sure different years and different case have different types of shafts. just need a customer to leave a wj in the shop overnight so i can find out
 
The slip yoke crack was a joke. The length of the shaft isn't the big issue. It's the lack of a dual cardan/CV joint that causes the vibes.
 
i understand its about the vibes, i ran it without the tcase drop installed and it was not that bad, i just don't want the rear shaft to fall off the splines of the yoke or twist them up when things get a little crazy. i see rubicon express makes longer slip yokes to cure that problem too.
 
Other than vibes, there is an issue of the yoke binding up with the driveshaft due to the angles. This is very common. The dual cardan splits the angle over two joints as well. There is a "high angle" yoke that has larger clearances and is about .25" longer. It is from the YJ I believe.
 
the rubicon express yoke says 5/8" longer and does say it allows for more angle to avoid bind. its for a 231 case, not the 242 which i have. just looking for options without dropin the $$ yet.
 
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