BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
So, as usual for these sorts of things, I set out to do one thing and ended up doing a half-dozen others.
First things first, I had some suspicions about whether the front long arm alignment was correct - They came directly off a friend's running/driving Jeep so I had just assumed they were equal length. Some futzing about with a tape measure and various reference locations determined the passenger side arm needed to be pulled in a bit, so off I went. The jam nut required a snipe to get off, and the flex joint threads were a but crusty (y u no use anti-seize?) so I figured I had better clean out the threads in the arm. Fortunately, I standardized my LCA joints when building my rears so I happened to have the correct 1-1/4" tap on hand. I'm a goddamn genius. Also, if you don't have a tap wrench big enough, a spline-drive ratcheting wrench is a godsend.
Not pictured: using a ratchet strap as a one-man wheelbase-adjustment tool.
I also caught the "well, while I'm already in there" bug and deleted the surplus front upper control mounts from the chassis, by way of an angle grinder. I was fairly confident I would get to the sway bar eventually.
The newly-modified sway bar was nice and shiny for the only time in its life. It's all downhill from here.
New vs. old. Note that Jeep rotated the sway link mounting plane 90 degrees for the WJ, which is nice because the XJ/TJ/ZJ design was really fucking stupid and snapped sway links all the goddamn time.
My sway bar disconnects use an adapter piece for ZJs that I just removed for the WJ bar. However, the alignment wasn't totally perfect, so I employed the big vise and the big hammer to create some "custom" offset links.
All bolted up and good to go.
Also took the time to install the little bracket that holds the bar out of the way when disconnected. Very slick.
And that's pretty much all she wrote for the suspension. This leaves me in the unusual position of having my vehicle essentially ready for the big Finalgear Offroad Jamboree... months in advance of the actual date. So I have time on my hands. Maybe I'll rebuilt my spare transmission in the meantime. Oh, that reminds me, I planned to install a bigger trans cooler too.... and rock sliders....
Oh, still waiting on two more wheels from Amazon - they claim they'll be here by February 6th but haven't shipped them yet. They'll need to get them out this week if they want to hit that date. Would be nice to get the new rubber on.
First things first, I had some suspicions about whether the front long arm alignment was correct - They came directly off a friend's running/driving Jeep so I had just assumed they were equal length. Some futzing about with a tape measure and various reference locations determined the passenger side arm needed to be pulled in a bit, so off I went. The jam nut required a snipe to get off, and the flex joint threads were a but crusty (y u no use anti-seize?) so I figured I had better clean out the threads in the arm. Fortunately, I standardized my LCA joints when building my rears so I happened to have the correct 1-1/4" tap on hand. I'm a goddamn genius. Also, if you don't have a tap wrench big enough, a spline-drive ratcheting wrench is a godsend.
Not pictured: using a ratchet strap as a one-man wheelbase-adjustment tool.
I also caught the "well, while I'm already in there" bug and deleted the surplus front upper control mounts from the chassis, by way of an angle grinder. I was fairly confident I would get to the sway bar eventually.
The newly-modified sway bar was nice and shiny for the only time in its life. It's all downhill from here.
New vs. old. Note that Jeep rotated the sway link mounting plane 90 degrees for the WJ, which is nice because the XJ/TJ/ZJ design was really fucking stupid and snapped sway links all the goddamn time.
My sway bar disconnects use an adapter piece for ZJs that I just removed for the WJ bar. However, the alignment wasn't totally perfect, so I employed the big vise and the big hammer to create some "custom" offset links.
All bolted up and good to go.
Also took the time to install the little bracket that holds the bar out of the way when disconnected. Very slick.
And that's pretty much all she wrote for the suspension. This leaves me in the unusual position of having my vehicle essentially ready for the big Finalgear Offroad Jamboree... months in advance of the actual date. So I have time on my hands. Maybe I'll rebuilt my spare transmission in the meantime. Oh, that reminds me, I planned to install a bigger trans cooler too.... and rock sliders....
Oh, still waiting on two more wheels from Amazon - they claim they'll be here by February 6th but haven't shipped them yet. They'll need to get them out this week if they want to hit that date. Would be nice to get the new rubber on.
Last edited: