Tweet
I got this '88 Cherokee in trade from a friend...I still don't know what I'm trading it for but after he'd loaned it out to a guy who overheated the motor, he dropped it off at my house and said "Here". We have two other old Cherokees, one's a driver and the other was also acquired free with an engine that ran out of oil. Seems to me like the two fried motors could be combined into one good one.
I am not a serious off-roader...but being a novice is lots of fun. When we were kids we used to hang out and tear up the streets, now that I'm older and wish to stay out of trouble I find you can have the same fun out in the desert with like-minded people and if you just respect your environment and others, as we "usually always" did anyway, it's all good.
At this point I've already torn out the original Dana 30 front end and built a 44 by taking a unit out of a '70s Blazer, pulling the axle tubes out of the center section, and installing new ones with the ends turned down so that the stock Jeep ends could be pressed/welded on. Axles aren't made yet but will be shortened Chevy pieces. I'm keeping it cheap here!
I made new lower control arm brackets which relocate the axle ahead 1 1/2" and down aways also, this provides more tire clearance at the firewall and keeps the control arms at a decent angle with the 3 or 4 inches of total lift I'm shooting for. The brackets are also far more rock-proof than the originals...made with thicker material, not hanging down so far and shielding the bushing. So far this is all dimensioned to use stock lower control arms which may be changed out for tougher ones later. There will need to be some front fender modification to work with the new axle location.
Cherokees use a front suspension similar to the rear of a Chevelle, except that control links are close to parallel so a Panhard rod (or "track bar") is required which runs alongside the steering drag link. In this case I'm eliminating the upper control arms and using a ladder-bar-type device to control axle housing rotation instead. First I built some brackets which fasten into the cast-iron diff housing with a good handfull of 3/8" bolts, which will provide a place to mount the ladder bar. I started out with spray-bomb red to see how that looked...it was pretty bad. I switched to black.
Then using Masonite from the hardware store I made different patterns for the ladder bar until I was happy with one. I took some 1 1/2" tubing and formed/cut some pieces up to weld together. The bends are to get around the flywheel area then the rear will tuck up near the trans crossmember.
You can buy weld-in ends for ten bucks that save some work and mount screw-in rod ends. They get welded in around the tube and also plug-welded in a few places back in the area where they sleeve in.
Here's a shot of using a modified hole saw in a milling machine to "fish-mouth" the ends of tubing for welding, just one of the ways of doing it.
At trial assembly, you can see that even with some lift the lower control arms look "right" (not excessively angled), and the ladder-bar sits as close as was possible to the center. The bottom tube of the ladder bar got an additional layer of steel to take rock impacts better but it seems to me like the rod-end area is still pretty vulnerable although it's up and back from the bottom of the diff. I'll see if I can come up with something to remedy that. You can see the remains of the original axle housing laying nearby.
I am not a serious off-roader...but being a novice is lots of fun. When we were kids we used to hang out and tear up the streets, now that I'm older and wish to stay out of trouble I find you can have the same fun out in the desert with like-minded people and if you just respect your environment and others, as we "usually always" did anyway, it's all good.
At this point I've already torn out the original Dana 30 front end and built a 44 by taking a unit out of a '70s Blazer, pulling the axle tubes out of the center section, and installing new ones with the ends turned down so that the stock Jeep ends could be pressed/welded on. Axles aren't made yet but will be shortened Chevy pieces. I'm keeping it cheap here!
I made new lower control arm brackets which relocate the axle ahead 1 1/2" and down aways also, this provides more tire clearance at the firewall and keeps the control arms at a decent angle with the 3 or 4 inches of total lift I'm shooting for. The brackets are also far more rock-proof than the originals...made with thicker material, not hanging down so far and shielding the bushing. So far this is all dimensioned to use stock lower control arms which may be changed out for tougher ones later. There will need to be some front fender modification to work with the new axle location.
Cherokees use a front suspension similar to the rear of a Chevelle, except that control links are close to parallel so a Panhard rod (or "track bar") is required which runs alongside the steering drag link. In this case I'm eliminating the upper control arms and using a ladder-bar-type device to control axle housing rotation instead. First I built some brackets which fasten into the cast-iron diff housing with a good handfull of 3/8" bolts, which will provide a place to mount the ladder bar. I started out with spray-bomb red to see how that looked...it was pretty bad. I switched to black.
Then using Masonite from the hardware store I made different patterns for the ladder bar until I was happy with one. I took some 1 1/2" tubing and formed/cut some pieces up to weld together. The bends are to get around the flywheel area then the rear will tuck up near the trans crossmember.
You can buy weld-in ends for ten bucks that save some work and mount screw-in rod ends. They get welded in around the tube and also plug-welded in a few places back in the area where they sleeve in.
Here's a shot of using a modified hole saw in a milling machine to "fish-mouth" the ends of tubing for welding, just one of the ways of doing it.
At trial assembly, you can see that even with some lift the lower control arms look "right" (not excessively angled), and the ladder-bar sits as close as was possible to the center. The bottom tube of the ladder bar got an additional layer of steel to take rock impacts better but it seems to me like the rod-end area is still pretty vulnerable although it's up and back from the bottom of the diff. I'll see if I can come up with something to remedy that. You can see the remains of the original axle housing laying nearby.
Comment