Does the front driveshaft need to be shortened with 4.5" RE lift

I have a 4.5" RE kit with the OME shocks and have noticed that the front driveshaft has zero room left to compress when the front axil is fully drooped. Just when the DS runs out of travel I am not real sure. Has anybody had to shorten their front shaft with long travel OME shocks and the 4.5" RE kit.

Do you have adjustable control arms? Sounds like they are too short!

I have a 4.5" lift (not RE) and the front driveshaft is too long at full droop. I put a limiting strap on the drivers side (US) and this kept it from compressing too far. I do think adjustable control arms would resolve this problem but I have fixed control arms and this worked for me.

I have the RE 4.5 superflex kit with adjustable control arms. My front drive shaft is fine. I have been running this for a year now with no problems. Good luck.

Yep, with the RE 4.5" superflex and OME shocks, my front drive shaft was binding at full droop. I had a new driveshaft made. Now my slightly too long shaft is my front and rear spare. I am trying to figure out how I want to redo my frontend though so all this may change.

How much did you shorten it by.

I ran a 4.5" for quite a while, and it's now at 6" (still on short arms for now). I haven't ran into this problem at all, it it close to being too long, but with proper control arm adjustment, it is just fine. I don't run RE (shouldn't matter unless fixed arms), and my shocks aren't OME, but I do run 14" travel shocks.

If you don't have adj. arms, you can make some adjustment by adding/removing shims in the stock LCA pocket. But since you can only adjust the lowers, just don't go too far and throw your pinion angle off.

If you can, post some pics of your wheel positioning, and DS + pinion angle.

xjdavid1 said:

How much did you shorten it by.

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I don't really know. I had a driveshaft shop measure it and make a new one for me. I never compared the two. I just know that the new one doesn't bind at full droop.

I have the fixed arms so at this point adjustment is not an easy option. I wanted the extra shaft anyway. Even though my spare shaft (old front) isn't the perfect length, it works.

i had the same problem with the front shaft was fully compressed!

i was afraid i would punch a hole in the transfer case so i took the front shaft off untile i got my tnt long arms,

now my axle is centered and the front shaft is no longer compressed fully.