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The SOA that Snitty is refering to was on my Jeep. Here is a list of things that you will need to purchase-
-4 shocks- autozone- approx. $18-22 a piece- I can get you the part #'s that I used in a day or two..
-approx. 4ft. of 1.5 square tubing- this is for making front shock mounts, transfer case lowering tubes
-new 3/16 hard brake line. This is patched in on mine, just temporary for now, but it works. you will also be spending about $15 or so on various fittings to hook these lines in.
-2 ft. of 1" cold rolled steel- manufacturing a new track arm, -also need a hydaulic pipe bender to bend the pipe properly (The best way to do it however is get a pitman arm off of a cherokee but since we broke a puller trying to get mine of we decided to go the other route)
-We also put in a totally different shock set-up in the back of the Jeep. It is no where near stock set-up, instead we welded a piece of angle iron to the bottom of the Jeep floor with two studs to mount the shocks in the middle and have them angle down to outside of the axle. Since I am no longer running the track bar in the rear, this shock set-up helps cure some sway in the back but also lets the rear articulate VERY nicely. I will have pics up soon of the set-up
-I was able to re-use the stock driveshaft without a SYE since with the t-case drop and welding the axles turned towards the transmission, we eliminated the need for either one, the rear axle sits right where it did before we did the converstion
The hardest thing to fabricate would be the track bar relocators and the track arm. I would recommend buying longer brake lines just to be safe, the track bar relocators, and the pitman arm. There is a big difference in price in those items so shop around. I choose autozone shocks and not Rancho's because the shocks I actually got are for a full-size truck, so I am sure they will last since they will see half the load they are tuned for.
The reason we did this so cheap was that the garage I was at had the scrape steel lying around and all the nec. tools to do it. But without access to a nice MIG welder this job becomes very difficult to do.
And to answer your question as to why this is better than a suspension kit- With the stock flat springs they will allow you to acticulate much more than a set of springs that have a nice 'smile' to them. Not to mention that the ride doesn't suffer from having stiffer springs...
I will be in touch and a web-page up soon of everything we did so far as the Jeep is a never ending process
-You know you are addicted to your Jeep when you spend more time with it than your girlfriend!!!-[addsig]