Tsaani97xj

It is time for some changes, fixes and upgrades.

Sorry so long.

To start out with a little background I took over my 97 XJ SE last october/november. Previously it was my wife's completely stock DD for 5-6 years and it served her/us well. She decided she wanted more creature comforts so we bought her a nice new 2012 KK. So now the XJ is mine and before I sold my Mustang I decided upgrade the Jeep to more my liking.

So I went and talked to a local shop that I was familiar with and has been around for decades. They sold me on a 3" zone lift with AAL, nitro shock upgrade and steering stabilizer. One of their techs had just pulled some 31x10.50 ATs off his Ranger with 80% tread left and I grabbed the whole set for $100. So I was very excited when it came time to pickup my new ride. Oh, I forgot to mention I only did a very small bit of research before deciding to go with them and relied heavily on the techs advice. Well after picking up the truck I found the ride to be quite harsh and just figured it was new and would need some time breaking in.

Upon further inspection I found the tires at 40psi and after some more research decided to let them down to 28psi and this helped a good amount. I also noticed my axle was sticking out the drivers side about 3/4" and I was puzzled because the tech had said they would adjust the trackbar, I had been under the impression this would be a bracket or a re-drill. So back to the shop and set an appointment up to fix the trackbar and on the day of the appointment I get a call 5 mins from the shop that the tech called out and they couldnt do the fix. I took it upon myself to correct the problem and do a re-drill and while at it a re-torque. This went well.

This made things better and made me a lot friendlier with my rig while also giving me the realization that I could and should have installed the lift myself. Now back to the harsh ride which seemed to come mostly from the rear. More research and education on shackle angles and I order some relocation brackets. Those go on with the typical resistance and hassle of removing the bumper since the factory thought only one set if nutstrips was enough hah. Well guess what happens over the next 6 months? You guessed it the good shackle angle and improved articulation has now severely fatigued my rear leafs. Much more on the passenger side as expected. There is more to this story but I am sure you are bored by now.

TL;DR

I would like some opinions on the following. This is not a trail rig and sees 95% DD street time. It occasionally sees sand at the beach, possibly a light trail and once in a while snow and slush.

New plans:

Rocky Road CAD w/ 1" poly spacer to level and improve the drive. I absolutely hate a vehicle that trams and wanders. Mine currently does this some.

Replace the factory control arms with OEM arms. All four. This seems logical since I will be using the CAD

IRO Double sheer adj trackbar. Self explanatory for the money just do it right, leaves options on lift down the road if use changes.

Bastard pack for the rear. I am comfortable with this and did a lot of experimenting a long time ago on an s10 lowrider so this shouldn't be a challenge. Going to see how stuck the OE bolts etc are and may sway me to some OME packs.

I do intend on new tires in the future and likely will stay at 31 or 32 and think I might go ahead and get some 15x8 steelies with 4" backspace for my existing tires since they are still ok.

Another option I am considering:

Losing the zone 3" coils in favor of some upcountry xj or v-8 zj coils and ACOS.


Thinking I can get this all done for around 1k which is my budget.


Again any input is appreciated and my ultimate goal here is ride quality, trail/off-road capability is completely second.

Thanks.

Tsaani

95Cherokee

That harsh ride in the rear is your AAL, they stiffen the leafs.

95Cherokee

Swap out the AAL for new leafs, you'll notice the difference.