With the amount of driving I do for work, you get tons of time to ponder crazy ideas. The other night coming home, I was behind a Jeep Comanche Pickup and thought of the racetruck version that was posted awhile back. Are the parts actually available out there to lower one of these or is it a custom job?
They're coil in the front and leaf in the back. Should be easy as pie without custom parts.
Take a coil or two out of the front.
If the rear axle is below the springs, flip the spring perches and put it on top. If it's already on top, lowering blocks are your friend.
Shawn
dosen't it have a beam front axle?
ohhh handling = awezomes..
Why lower? this one is 2wd 
Yes they are solid axle in the front. Thank god for that.. it could be worse.. it could be twin I-beam! 
Vigo wrote: Yes they are solid axle in the front. Thank god for that.. it could be worse.. it could be twin I-beam!
twin i-beam has its place
cheap to make big travel.
In reply to Vigo:
I love the Twin I-Beam in my F-150.
You must've never had one.
Yeah get some good new shocks like Bilstein or Edlebrock for an XJ (a little shorter), cut the front coils a little and use a block in the back. MJs are already spring under so you'll need the blocks.
Hmm... lets think about this.
I want to noticeably lower the front of my truck. I also want my tires to wear in a pattern that RESEMBLES 'even'.
So what do i pick... straight axle, or negative camber city? Crash bolts cant fix whats wrong with twin i-beam.
A complicated rig involving a bunch of steel beams and hydraulic rams CAN fix it, sorta... but who wants to (or even can) mess with that?
Sorry, I didn't realise you were applying the i-beam hate to lowering.
They work fine they way they were designed. I've never had the need to lower them.
Shawn
Easy is nice but easy and free is better, and thats what the comanche's got. Unless you count the cost of a cutting wheel.
Anyway i only brought it up as a joke.. twin i-beam has nothing to do with lowering a comanche. I therefore /threadjack. 
modified front solid axle (XJ)
If that's your axle I would strongly suggest adding a rib below the modified section to restore the moment of inertia in the middle of the axle where the bending stress is at it's greatest. (sorry I'm an engineer) Basically It needs to be taller in the middle. You cut out about 60% of the bending stiffness of that axle by modifying it in that way.
Daniel
If it were supported in the middle, yes, but it is supported at each end. The only stresses I'm concerned with are axial. It may induce a bit of bending stress since it is off axis but that's 1/8" plate welded back in...I didn't run any numbers but I'm pretty sure we're fine. Famous last words? Maybe.
These axle tubes were designed to support a diff. and axle shafts plus dealing with the likelihood of smashing into rocks. I hope I don't hit rock
You'll probably be ok, however I'd add some gusseting to the bottom just to be safe.
We're not building tanks here, I'll add more metal IF it break :)
A 2wd Jeep is an oxymoron.
miatame wrote: We're not building tanks here, I'll add more metal IF it break :)
Yes, you probably will. You'll add more metal to the fender, and hood, and back, and everything that gets dented when it wrecks :D
well consider how flimsy the bent stamped steel rear beam axles on lots of fwd cars are; they arent even all boxed. those jeep 2wd front axle tubes are almost 1/4" thick, and boxed in.
Yes, however I wouldn't REMOVE 1/2 of their structure either and expect it to work just the same. On production vehicles there are lots of components that were designed by an engineer and have gone through millions and millions of miles of testing/consumer use to prove that they are strong enough. Just because another application has what appears to be a weaker component doing what your application is, I absolutely would not intentionally weaken a OEM component and then re-use it in a weakened state on it's origional application.
i definitely see your point, but a jeeps front suspension was designed first for a solid 4x4 axle that's (compared to control arms,etc.) very strong and so rather than re-engineer the whole suspension its vastly cheaper to just put a longer very heavy axle tube straight across the 2wd model.
nocones wrote: On production vehicles there are lots of components that were designed by an engineer and have gone through millions and millions of miles of testing/consumer use to prove that they are strong enough.
By chance are you fresh out of school? You appear to have the book logic still in-bedded. In reality the engineer designs for the greatest stress, adds a factor of safety of about 2, gives the design to a specification manager stamping the design it who adds a factor of 1.5, and then it goes to the fabrication plant who has a minimum wall thickness to meet, to which it exceeds.
And you are assuming a Cherokee was the design vehicle. I'm not sure but it could have been a much larger vehicle.
Not as much goes into each part as you outlined, especially on a Jeep. If a part doesn't break during testing it goes into production. Don't always trust the "engineer", they sh*t just like you do, they aren't magicians and this ain't NASA. :)
You'll need to log in to post.
