bRIBEGuy's 2000 XJ

[BlackYJ]

and then it'll be a fair bit of work (acos, lift shackles, shock spacers, sye, rear drive shaft), and then trying to scrape up cash for the new shoes.

Honestly with the wheelbase of a cherokee you should be good up to at least 4" of lift before a SYE would be required.  I ran 3" on my YJ with no issues and cherokees have 10" of extra wheel base.  Plus lift shackles will actually help your pinion angle so new shoes could come sooner than anticipated

Just some food for thought

[bRIBEGuy]

Honestly with the wheelbase of a cherokee you should be good up to at least 4" of lift before a SYE would be required.  .......Just some food for thought

I was hoping this would be the case, but even going up 2-3" in the rear caused some mild vibes.    From what I have read, the newer XJ's are much more susceptible to this then the pre-97 ones.  I already have the SYE kit, and I'm a big fan of only fixing things once, so I hope to get this done in the near future.  Still debating on doing it myself vs. taking it somewhere, and still need to figure out what to do/where to go for a new rear shaft too.

So many things to do.....LOL.

[Raspberry]

I run a '97 XJ with 6.5" of lift, soon to be close to 8" of lift, and no SYE.... never had any issues.
My buddy Mike runs his 2000 XJ at 8" of lift with no SYE, and also no vibes of any kind.
Even more a experienced wheeler like Jenssen will tell you a SYE is not needed on an XJ for that amount of lift.

Honestly if you're getting vibes I would put money on them being caused by something other than the rear driveshaft, given that your u-joints are in good condition and your rear pinion angle is correct.
Just some more food for thought

[cLAY]

I too had 8" of lift on my xj with no sye. Took a fair bit of playing around with longer shackles, tapered blocks and a tcase drop. Probably would have done a sye if it was not so expensive. Plus its nice to have if you ever blow out your rear shaft and have to drive home. A sye keeps the oil in the tcase.

[bRIBEGuy]

Well, after MUCH waiting, some goodies for the XJ FINALLY showed up.  I had ordered a ORFab winch bumper from Stan @ Northridge (great guy), and "a couple weeks" turned into "a couple months" for him to recieve delivery of it.



Anyway, it showed up here last week along with a set of JKS front disco's, and a new front steering stabilizer (OME to match the rest of the shocks).  I took off the old front bumper and front tow points yesterday, so if all goes smoothly, the bumper should be on today.  My only fear is removing the 3 steering box bolts.........I keep hearing horror stories of them snapping.  I've spent a couple days hitting them with some PB Blaster, so hopefully that helps.

Pics and updates to follow...........

[TL-Iguana]

Never had issues with my steering box bolts, but when you put them back in put on some copper never sieze or something similar, as the dissimilar metals will casue them to corrode, and therefore make them much harder to remove next time

If ya need a hand just let me know. You know where we live

[bRIBEGuy]

Steering bolts came out with no issues.   

Managed to get about 2/3 of the way through the install today.  Not as much progress as I had hoped, but it's time consuming when you're new to wrenching, cleaning as you go, and dealing with a kit made up almost entirely of bolts.....lol.

[bRIBEGuy]

Got the bumper pretty much finished up tonight.  Overall, a very nice piece of kit, but as with anything, it did have some issues.

To start, a brief reminder of the "before" look.  This is a pic snapped out past Waipairous a couple weekends ago on an exploratory run.



The following Monday yielded a visit from UPS, and a short unpack later, I was greeted with boxes filled with spray foam.







As great as the packing was, it seems that ORFab managed to damage the finish on a number of pieces before sending them out.  The light mount has a series of scrapes through the powdercoationg and right into the steel.



The rest of the pieces have some chips in the finish, and generally are pretty scuffed up.  Boo!

None the less, still looks pretty cool, IMHO.






Another negaitive, was that not all the parts were in the same finish.  While the main bumper was in the bicycle black, they shipped the steering box brace in wrinkle black.  Uhg.

[bRIBEGuy]

Front end tear down of the XJ went smooth.  Surprised at the amount of mismatched hardware holding on the bumpers, though, and even more surprised to find a bolt missing.   







Also discovered that there is supposed to be some sort of sensor by the grill.  Mine apparently is missing, though the wiring & plug is still around.  Anyone know if this is something I should be looking into?

Anyway, started with the "Gap Guard"..........which of course doesn't fit since I have a tranny cooler.  A few measurements and some xacto time, and the problem is solved.




Center section bolts on first using what will end up totaling to be a ridiculous amount of 1/2" grade 5 & 8 bolts.




End caps go on next.  No issues here.



Then the grill loop.  Looks great, but doesn't fit quite as flush as I had hoped.  One of the washers hits the weld too.  No biggy, I guess.




Center winch section and light mount is up next, along with trimming the stock wheel well liners.  AKA, pretty much done.  Loved the fact that the kit was missing two 1/2" x 1.5" bolts.  Uhg, now I have to track those down.

[BlackYJ]

Nice bumper, it looks good.

I would recommend you change all the hardware to grade 8 bolts as they are stronger and have the zinc coating to help prevent rusting.  For the few dollars it will cost, it helps a lot.

[bRIBEGuy]

Nice bumper, it looks good.

I would recommend you change all the hardware to grade 8 bolts as they are stronger and have the zinc coating to help prevent rusting.  For the few dollars it will cost, it helps a lot.

Thanks.

Ya, I wondered that about the bolts (the kit mixes class 5 & .  Maybe I'll swap out all the class 5 stuff a bit later.  Any recommendations on where to track down a wack of 1/2" x 1.5" grade 8 bolts?

[specialk]

Bolt Supply

[Tyn Pow]

I have the same bumper and it's held up well.  But I didn't like how the winch plate stuck out so far so I mounted it behind the main tube instead of in front...really helped cause even now that it's sucked back a bit, it still hangs out and gets caught up sometimes.

[TL-Iguana]

Bolt Supply

x2


Unless your looking for Metric, which you are not, but then Quest will have the best selection in that regard...

[bRIBEGuy]

Well, I managed to get a bit more work done on the XJ.

First up was finding the rest of the bolts for the bumper.  A quick trip to Calgary Fasteners revealed that 1/2" grade 8 bolts were much cheaper then I expected.  As such, I picked up enough of them to replace all the garde 5 hardware on my bumper. 

Next up was swapping out my stock (and tweaked) swaybar links for a nice set of JKS Discos.




Getting the old links off was a snap, but dealing with the press fit pin at the bottom was another matter.  After 4 days of PB Blaster, I opted to try the extraction method suggested by TL_Iguana and Immortal..........knocking them out with a hammer.  After 20 minutes, I gave up, and splurged $12 on a pitman puller from Princess Auto.  A quick grind on the bolts to allow the puller to fit, and they slid right out like butter.





After that, the new ones slid in without issue.  Good stuff!