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Welcome to Holeproof Industries, Northern
Alaska's only real 4x4 and off-road shop. Providing custom fabrication & 4x4
parts for off-road vehicles in Interior Alaska.
Holeproof Industries Product
Installs & Testing
Complete Comanche 4.5"
Rough Country lift kit
When Ben and the great folks down at Rough Country Suspension
heard of our shop's work in progress, they quickly signed up to help us out with
a lift kit. The Comanche lift covers 86-93 Jeep MJ's. There are
3", 4.5" and 6.5" lifts available. We chose the 4.5" lift for our shop project.
Shipping only took about a week for the kit to show up at our shop, which is
really good considering we live in Northern Alaska. Everything was boxed
well and wrapped to a wood pallet.
The kit includes two front coil springs, two front lower control arms, 2 XJ
transfer case drop kits, front track bar drop bracket, sway-bar drop brackets,
brake line relocating brackets for both the front and rear, two leaf
spring mounting plates and 4 Heckethorn 8000 series shocks. Install time
is between 8 and 10 hours for a well stocked garage with a recommended tire size
up 32x10.50 with out trimming.
The front is
pretty straight forward, just about the same as any TJ Wrangler or XJ Cherokee
front end. Unbolt the track bar from the axle bracket. This will be
the last thing you put back together. Unbolt shocks and lower control
arms. Pull bump stops out of the coils and then pull the coils out.
Replace with new coils and lower control arms. Unbolt brake lines and
insert the drop brackets. We suggest replacing the brake lines with longer
braided stainless steel lines. Install new shocks and check all fasteners for
proper torque. Remove the old sway-bar mounts and replace with the new
drop mounts. We suggest replacing the old rubber bushings with some new
poly bushings for better handling. Now is a good time to install the
track-bar relocation bracket and bolt the track-bar back up.
The transfer
case drop kit includes two XJ drop kits. Unlike its cousin the XJ the
Comanche doesn't have the body to reinforce the sub-frame. To battle this
Jeep has the cross-member bolted in 8 spots on the MJ, compared to the four
bolts on the XJ. This helps the MJ from twisting its sub-frame. Install is
simple. Place a jack under the cross-member, unbolt the bolts, lower the
jack some, and insert the new spacers.
The kit comes with weld-on
spring perches for the rear SOA (Spring Over Axle). This is nice since you
can set your pinion angle to whatever you need it to be, without using shims.
I left the old spring perches on just in case I wanted to go back down or use
lift springs later and they don’t get in the way or hang low. Here are two
shots from the rear. What I want to point out is if you decide to keep the
rear LSPV (Load Sensing Proportionate Valve), you will need to pull the two diff
cover bolts that hold it on. The ball that the rod snaps onto can be
removed. Remove this ball and swap sides. Flip the bracket upside
down and backwards and bolt back on to the diff. It should be setting just
about the same place as it was before the lift. I did this with the Dana
44 rear end. On my other MJ, which had the Dana 35, I just removed the
LSPV all together. So I don’t know if this works on the Dana 35 rear axle.
Also look at the shock mounts. The MJ’s stock lower shock mounts are part
of the spring/u-bolt plates. When you do the SOA on the rear, those plates
go from right under the leaf spring to just above the leaf spring. After
the SOA the shock mount sits higher than before. This makes the new longer
shocks impossible to put on unless you flip the stock spring/u-bolt plate upside
down. We decided to order a set of lower universal shock
mounts form Dynatrac for the rear end.
So far we have not had our shop truck off-road, but we
just did a 4” Rough Country TJ lift and that was incredibly flexy on the trail.
On the road the new suspension feels amazingly better then the old worn out
parts. We don’t have tires and rims for the truck yet, but as stupid as
the small ones look they grip the snow really well so we will just hold off
until the right tire comes around.
The MJ 4.5" lift retails for $495.00 and you can't find a
better lift cheaper; a great value. If you are interested in this lift or
any of the Rough Country Suspensions please contact us. We would like to
extend our special thanks to Ben and all the people down at Rough County.
If you are a
fan of the MJ please visit
http://www.comancheclub.com/forums/
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