DaveB
Long Jeep Fan
- Location
- Holladay, Utah
My niece's 2001 Cherokee started making some "funny noises" so we got her Jeep over at my house to figure out what the issue was. Well it turned out to be a bunch of issues and after fixing all of them I need to have her turn down the radio once in a while and listen to her Jeep. The most obvious issue was a broken front spring that was allowing the bump stop post to rub the coils. We got new coils and started to fix the jeep. This Jeep had a 3.5 inch RE lift on it that someone had added rubber pucks to it to get more lift. However they didn't make any changes after they added the pucks so the alignment was out, the trackbar was too short, the shocks were too short, as well as the brake lines. The previous owner "fixed" the brake line problem by unbolting the brakeline mounting bracket so the line could stretch. In the process of swapping the springs I discovered that the rotors and pads were shot so those got replaced. The too short shocks were worn out so those got replaced with longer ones. We also got new longer brake lines. She also had short arms with no drop brackets so swapping the springs was a pain. The short arms with 5.5 inches of lift also moved her axle back quite a bit so the tires rubbed and the bump stops rubbed the coils. The track bar length was causing the right front tire to rub the swaybar disconnects at full left turn because the axle was shifted to the left. I fixed the trackbar and got the axle centered but it took a lot of work because the adjustment lock nut was siezed. The torch took care of that and she now has anti sieze to keep it adjustable in the future. In order to fix the issue of the axle being too far back and to fix the control arm geometry we put on some RE drop brackets. I found the last source of the funny noises when we dropped the cross member to put on the drop brackets. I discovered that she has been driving around with no bolts holding the transfercase rear rubber mount to the tranny. The drivetrain would have had to have been clunking around a bunch since the only thing holding the drivetrain in were the motor mounts. Hopefully she won't hear any more funny noises.
