primegreen

Hey guys, I'm just getting my feet wet here. Been lurking for a while, have owned a Cherokee for about 6 years and I've made the decision to go for a lift. I've tried to do my best research before posting here, but I'm sure there's something I missed so I'm wondering if you guys could help me out a bit.

My jeep right now has 29" tires on stock everything (only thing I did was remove fender flares). I've kept up maintenance pretty well, it has about 100k miles and runs very strong. I replaced driver side floor pan, gonna need to get to the passenger side and rear soon. Other than replacing stuff like distributor, rotor, plugs, O2 sensor, , NSS, CPS, engine and fuel gaskets, etc, rust is the only real issue so far (this was a NJ jeep, I've since moved to Los Angeles.)

So I'm gearing up for a lift! I thought about doing 3" with 32s since this is mostly a daily driver that sits in traffic most days and trails on weekends, but after reviewing everything like gear ratio and mph, I think it just makes more sense to go big and regear than inch up and feel sluggish. As long as I'm opening everything up so to speak, I figure I'd go ahead and replace a few things while I'm down there. Also I WILL be trimming fenders a little bit. So here's a list of everything I have planned as I compile parts:

Rough Country 4.5 inch X-Series lift
SYE and CV driveshaft
New 4.56 gears for D30 front and D30 rear
New ball joints
New ujoints and axel hubs
39 tooth short speedometer gear
2" bump stops
Steering stabilizer
Heavy duty tie rod + tie rod ends and sleeve
Sway bar bushings
New differential gaskets, oil pan gasket, oil filter adapter gasket, rear main seals, etc (I switched to Defy synthetic blend about 5,000 miles ago so I have some oil leakage, nothing major)
Brown dog ultra flex rubber motor mounts
New transmission mount

And of course... 33s!!!

So how does this all look? Am I forgetting something? I really would like to do everything at one time. Don't wanna run into problems later. I'm sure I'm missing something so I'm counting on you guys!

SatiricalHen

Well first red flag is rough country, I wouldn't choose them if you want to do things right. Had rough country and now it's all being replaced piece by piece. Second you don't have a dana 30 rear, that's not actually possible since there never was a dana 30 rear axle. Also if you have a dana 35 I would suggest axle swap before spending money on gears and such for a crappy axle. If you're redoing your steering I would go with a heim set up over tie rod ends. A good kit is the cav fab steering. You won't need to trim to fit 33s with 4.5" at least I'm 90% sure you won't, and don't decide on bumpstops till you flex it out and see what you need. Every set up is different. I have like 4" of bumpstop because I run 12" travel bilstein shocks, and this may change once I get everything dialed in and check it out by flexing it out. Is this going to be an actually offroad rig or pretty much look cool and stay on road? Because if you're actually going to wheel I'd get lockers when you regear also.

Jeepification

I second the comment about avoiding rough country. Should be called Rust Country.

primegreen

Sorry did I say d30 rear? Simple mix up. D30 front, d35 rear. As far as lift goes, I wanted rubicon express originally but 3.5 isn't enough. I know most say they sit as closer to 4, but the RC 4.5 seems higher. Is there another lift kit you would recommend at 4.5?

primegreen

As for use, it's going to be a DD with weekend trail use. No rocks. Traffic sucks here so I gotta look at my build with an eye towards that.

SatiricalHen

I'm running 4.5 rubicon express springs with a cav fab 3 link in the front and will run 3.5" re springs with a shackle relocator and boostwerks shackles once I finish the rear. You should get rid of the dana 35 at least swap in a Chrysler 8.25 for 97+ since they're 29 spline vs the older 27.

xj_bill

Longer front brake lines...I think I went with the CK pickup front brake lines.

Longer sway bar drop links...I have a really nice set of JKS that I'm not using so PM me if you don't want to pay full price (actually they are better than new b/c I upgraded the hardware).