Jedeye

I come before thee but a humble servant. I had to replace my leaf springs on my '96 XJ. I replaced them with Old Man Emu CS033RB lift springs. I also replaced the rear shocks that were shot with some Skyjacker H7018 shocks.

Unrelated to the rear suspension stuff but I had to replace my steering stabilizer since it was also worn out. I used a Rancho RS5401 Steering Stabilizer.

I decided to have my mechanic shop do all the labor since I didn't have the necessary tools and I am not living at home. Plus I didn't want to tackle the rear leafs after reading so much about it on here. Anyway, as with any XJ project, more problems have arisen and I need advice.

1. I had the mechanic take out the 3rd leaf in order to reduce the lift on the rear. There is a 2.25 in spacer in the front and there WAS a 1.25in block in the back. I got rid of the rear block by using lift leafs as opposed to factory leafs. I removed the 3rd leaf as per the manufacturer's instructions to get closer to the 2.25 inch of the front. They said out of the box the leafs will give closer to 3-4 on a stock/light weight jeep. So removing the 3rd leaf will bring it down some. My concern is that my rear is now about 1 inch higher than the front. In other words, The leafs gave me about 3 inches or a little more in the back. Will the leafs settle that much to match the front? I have a rear mount spare tire and about a 100 pound storage system in the back so I am assuming that will help. Or do I now need to replace my stock shocks and 2.25 inch spacer in the front with a 2.5-3 inch spacer and new shocks? I am concerned the higher rear is going to affect my performance (See question 2)


2. I have the shakes. Well not me really but my XJ. AKA death wobbles. I am not new to this monster though as when I bought the jeep it had some pretty worn mud tires. The more worn they got, the worse the wobbles got. When I replaced the tires they disappeared. I am about to move across state so I wanted my jeep checked out. My mechanic said everything looked tight and good with the front suspension except my steering stabilizer needed to be replaced. But everything else seemed good. I mentioned that I had just started to get a little bit of wobbles and He said the stabilizer being worn out could have affected that a little. After we replaced the leafs and the stabilizer, the wobbles are a little worse. The mechanic discovered this when he drove it after doing all the work. He went back to the shop and checked everything that he said could possibly cause those wobbles and he has arrived to two possible causes: Either my tires being worn are causing it or the lifted rear end being higher is putting more weight on whatever is causing the problem. Otherwise everything else seems tight. Or some combination of both worn tires and rear weight. Any ideas?


Sorry to put so much in one thread but I think these are related. What do y’all thing?

peligro113

You need to measure the amount of lift you received from the leafs, if you have stock fender flares measure from the bottom of the flare to the center of the wheel, from the factory the front should be 17.5" and 17" in the rear. I going to go ahead and say if you lifted more than 3" you're going to need a SYE and driveshaft.

Jedeye

I didn't lift it more than 3" and I dont think i need a new driveshaft. But I will measure the lift tonight. Like i said, the mechanic told me the rear is one inch higher than the front

peligro113

How do you know if you havent measured?

Jedeye

Fine haha. I measured myself. And what do you know the back is one inch higher than the front.

peligro113

Yeah but one inch higher of what lift height