SBXJ93111

I've got a 96 XJ and managed to get it stuck in a large mud/water pit a few months ago. It sat overnight in it while waiting for my buddy to pick me up (I was asleep inside)

Since then every week or so I have to splash some water on the undercarriage around the suspension and steering parts to get it to stop squeeking. I'm getting a bit tired of doing this, and want to pull the front end apart and regrease everything and clean any grit out.

Does anyone have a guide for lifted XJ's showing the most important area to grease, and what types of grease to use? I'll be doing this in my garage, and it will be up on the high jack

Guywitha92

Grease every fitting you can find. Use good waterproof grease. Fittings are in your steering, axle shafts, driveshafts, maybe control arms depending what yours are, upper and lower ball joints

sycoglitch

Hope you opened up your diffs also and cleaned them out and pit new oil in (sounds like you went that deep) As for the zerks, multi purpose.grease is fine. If you hit water holes often then you'll just have to hit things clean. You can also spray down some bolts and such with wd40 especially your leaf springs to get anything between them cleaned out some.

bad_idea

DO NOT WORK UNDER THE JEEP SUPPORTED SOLELY BY A JACK. ESPECIALLY A HIGH LIFT, THEM BASTARDS ARE UNSTABLE AT BEST.

If your XJ is lifted, you shouldn't have to jack it up to lube the suspension. Mine is lifted 5" on 33s and I can almost sit upright under it.

As stated above, hit any zerk fitting with grease. Spray aerosol lube into any joint that doesn't. Good time to pop the diffs to check for water and change the fluid. I use cheap fluid with the intent of changing it often. Also check the engine oil and trans fluid for water. If you haven't changed those in a while, might be a good time to change them.

SBXJ93111

Awesome, thanks guys. I was thinking I need to get the weight off the front wheels to get into the joints properly, or is it fine just loosening everything, adding some lube and then connecting again?

Didn't realise it was so bad working underneath it with hi-lift jacks. It's common practice among home mechanics in England, where I just moved from!

TRCM

You must be a very short individual....................

My Ramcharger lifted 9" on 40" tires I could barely sit upright under it unless my head was in the trans tunnel, and the jeep @ 4.5" & 31's I can lay under, but am nowhere near sitting upright.


NEVER TRUST A JACK ALONE...I had one fail on me in my younger days, and I was lucky I had someone to get the vehicle off of me. Jackstands are cheap.....getting crushed/trapped under a vehicle over 30 bucks is not.


Usually, some WD40 or white grease in the leaf springs gets rid of what you are talking about...using water just makes it worse as it just rusts more.



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bad_idea

It is required to tighten suspension components with the weight on the suspension. Standard practice is to loosely assembly everything, set vehicle on tires, then tighten everything to torque spec. So to answer your question, will be just fine.

I have replaced control arms on my XJ with it on the tires. Just replaced one arm at a time.

When retightening the joints, use the proper torque spec. It is critical on suspension components to operate correctly. Too loose, things come apart. Too tight, bolts fail. The torque specs are in the FSM, or can be found on google. A cheap 1/2" 150 ft/lb beam type torque wrench will be good enough.

SBXJ93111

Whoah that jack story is intense.

Thanks for the info bad_idea! Very helpful. I've got to track down what lift kit I've got on there, and check the manufacturers docs too then.

bad_idea

Do you have long arms on the Jeep? If not, then the torque specs should all be the same as stock. Typically you reuse the stock fasteners or the lift manufacturer will supply new bolts of the same size/strength. Not a bad idea to verify, but you should be fine with the stock torque specs.

SBXJ93111

Great thanks. I can't track down the guy I bought the Jeep from to get a full spec list, so ill assume that I can just use stock torque.