front to rear lift question

bchcky

bchcky

New member
ok so the sickness hasnt gone away, and like everyone else, i still want to go bigger. right now i have a 2" bb from rubicon express that consists of spacers and new shocks. i am now considering a front to rear spring change, and just buy new shocks. my question is will this work? is it ok to do a front to rear over already existing spacers? and if so how much extra lift would this give me about? enough where i'd have to drop the t-case among other things? any input would be greatly appreciated, along with any examples of shocks or springs i might need to buy to make this switch possible.

edit: its a 96 zj. and the rubicon express lift technically gives it about a 1.5" boost. thanks!
 
The front springs to the rear works on TJ's to give about 4" of lift in the rear, so I'm thinking it will work fine for ZJ's.

You'll need front springs, 4 shocks, brakelines, track bar brackets, swaybar links, etc.
 
Stainless Jeepz.com

I have done the front to rear swap on my 94 and it works great. I had lifted my old XJ with a 3 inch lift from skyjacker so I allready had all the parts. first you will need a replacement front springs and there are two ways to do this. You can buy a set of stock springs and use the spacers as long as they are stackable you allready have to lift the front a total of 3 inches or buy a set of 3 inch lift springs for either XJ or ZJ they are the same. I used the XJ lift springs from the lift I allready had and I would recomend this way the lift springs cost about $126 for skyjacker and well worth it. You will also need some longer shocks. Again I allready had these from my XJ lift. I have the 4.0 in both my ZJ's and it actually lifted 3.75 inches and it would put the stock shock at the end of its travel. The last thing you have to contend with is the alignment of track bars and there are several ways to do this as I will try to explain in the these simple instructions.
First lift your front and remove front coil springs you obviously did this get your spacers on so I am not going to into super amounts of detail. You will have to remove lower control arms to get your new lift springs in the front if you dont have coil spring compressor. You can replace stock shock at this point too.
After you are done with the front lift up the rear and remove stock springs and replace them with the stock springs you pulled out of the front. Again you will have to remove lower control arms to get the new springs in if you dont have a compressor. Replace shocks and put the vehicle on the ground and take a look at it on the ground.
You will notice that the front axle sits more towards the driver side and the rear sits more towards the passenger this is because of the track bars and this is where it gets kinda complex. The "best" way and the easist is to correct this is to replace front and rear trackbar with adjustable ones. The next thing you can do is install buy trackbar relocation brackets to move them where they need to be. I got one of these on my XJ but I did not like it, it seemed to get loose constandly so I ended up welding it on. The last thing you can do is only for somebody who has the right equipment and know how to do it and is what I did. first remove the front trackbar lower it out of the way and weld up its mounting holes in the front axle, grind the welds down, then redrill the holes 3/16 of an inch to the right of the original holes. You really cant axcess the holes that easily to do the same for the rear so you will have to cut the rear track bar and sleeve it with some 1" inside diameter pipe at least 1/8 wall thickness. I borrowed a laser level from my work to align this with the front. Be sure you have the weight of the vehicle on the axle when your going for the alignment, in other words place jackstands under the axle not the frame. This does matter, it the axle is hanging it will be even farther to one side of the vehicle. I shot the laser down the side of the jeep directly parallel and measured to the lug studs to be sure the rear tires are directly behind the front. Then real carefully tack the sleeve to the rear trackbar in several places and then take it down to weld it up completly. dont bump the jeep while you are tacking it in place. Caution you are welding right next to the gas tank. Now is not the time to find out you have a leak. If you dont have steady hands with a welder I would seriously not recomend you do this. I have been welding 12 years, I work in fabrication and machining and even I was a little nervous. The gas tank to rear trackbar is maybe two inches at best.
At this time you are pretty much done with the exception of an alignment. I did that myself with the laser I borrowed too but this post is long enough without trying to explain the trigonometry involved in finding the angles with a tape measure. I did run into a little death wobble but I think it was due to some worn out lower control arms bushings. I also used the lower control arms that came with the lift for the XJ for the ZJ to correct this. Bounty_hunter thinks the stock control arms themselves were the blame of my death wobble so you might want to consider getting those as well. He seams to know these pretty well. If you have any questions on what I did let me know.
 

Just an afterthought I had allready machined some sway bar disco's so you will them as far as brake lines you may not need. I have not needed them but I really dont have too many chances to flex the ZJ here. I was able to get so more length by rotating the line in the clip on the inner fender. OK I am going to quit typing now.
 
thanks for all the help guys, a few more questions though.
TC - the rusty's kit comes with front and rear coils, and a rear trac bar bracket...if i'm not mistaken, this might not be the most economical way to go, cause i'll still need new shocks, and i dont need new rear coils anyways for a front to rear swap. this sound right?
Bounty - i'll need trac bar brackets for the front and rear right? and this is going to sound stupid, but what do i look for in breaklines? (ie. how long?) and could i get OEM ones that fit or do i have to look elsewhere?
ROGLSTUBB - got any suggestions for shocks? i have some doetsch shocks that came with my 2" bb, but i was assuming i'd still have to go longer on those.

and just in general, for the sway bar links, i was looking at the rubicon express links, i guess i might as well buy a complete disco set? i currently run the "home depot" version of the discos like many here do, and they work just fine. but i might just be best off going with a complete set? and also, i gather that the general consensus here is that a front to rear swap would work fine if i left my current spacers from the budget boost in? so 1.5-2" from the BB, plus 3" (is that right?) from the front to rear swap, i'm looking at 4-5" of lift here? i just feel that i'm missing something, like the transfer case. wouldnt i have to drop that too? and can someone elaborate on what TC said about the driveline angle? thanks for all the help guys!
 

The Shocks I used for the lift came from the XJ lift. They are skyjacker hydro shocks "the cheaper ones" they are good for up to 4 inches of lift.

I did not have to move the tcase I have not had any driveline vibes but with the combination of spacer lift and the F>R coil swap you may have to put some spacer's between your rear crossmember and your frame to lower it. I made some out of some 1/2 aluminum plate when I was having death wobble problems but ended up not using them. be sure to use longer bolts.

since I did not go with the trackbar relocation bracket my question is are they made differently to compensate for different lift heights. I am sure they are made for the common lift heights but with the combination of lifts will they work. Also if you have a tendency to keep wanting to go higher maybe a adjustable trackbar be a better buy. I was going to make some adjustable trackbars instead of the hassle I did but I did not have a bar bender at the time. I got one coming now It will be a mod in the future but first I have got to get rid of those low plastic bumpers.

Definatly post your results I am going to make some spacers for lifting my wife's ZJ soon and I will make some extras for going a little higher myself. I guess you can be the "guinea pig" :lol:
 
just a quick note: the zj's from 92-98 all have the same suspension geometry, for every inch of lift you need to extend the trackbars .2" to compensate for a 3-5" inch lift. more then that and the offset is calculated a little differently. f>r in a 93 zj, no issues yet. trac bar relocator in front exended bar in rear, shocks for a 4" all the way around, 3" xj coils up front. no need for brake lines ar any of that stuff. good luck!
 
Let me get this straight

I can take my 2" lift springs off, Put the Front on the Rear, then just get 5.5 lift springs and have a 5-6 " lift front and rear???

but then of course add Control arms, Track-bars, control arms, Pitman arm, brake lines, SYE or X-fer case drop, for around 1700 bucks ass apposed to 24000 for LA 5.5" lift??
 
L33TJ33P said:
Let me get this straight

I can take my 2" lift springs off, Put the Front on the Rear, then just get 5.5 lift springs and have a 5-6 " lift front and rear???

but then of course add Control arms, Track-bars, control arms, Pitman arm, brake lines, SYE or X-fer case drop, for around 1700 bucks ass apposed to 24000 for LA 5.5" lift??
Click to expand...
seems to good to be true right?
 

Seams Dangerous. The rear has a Spring stump top and bottom in the rear which is why the springs are the way they are.
 
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