My Cherokee lift project was completed over a couple of weeks during the Christmas holidays, so it was much more drawn out than necessary. I seldom worked more than a couple of hours on any given day.
Project 1999 Cherokee XJ Rusty's 3" lift install
Day 1: Monday December 19
I planned to wait until next week to start the lifting project, but I have all of the parts and am anxious. I am on vacation most of next week, but don't have enough vacation days left to take the whole week off, so I want to get as much done this week so if I have any problems I can have plenty of time to figure them out. My next semester at school starts the first week next year, so I will have less free time them.
After work I tear into the rear springs. Before starting I use a magnetic angle gage to measure the angles of the transfer case output shaft, driveshaft, and pinion, and learn that the angle between the TC shaft and driveshaft is exactly the same as the angle between the pinion and driveshaft or at least as close to perfect as I can measure. This is ideal for canceling out driveline angles, and is just how it should be on a stock vehicle, so no surprise here. I also learned that the angle of both u-joints is right around 5 degrees.
Working one side at a time I remove the shocks, remove the tire, and tear apart the spring pack. I found that at full droop I had just enough room to get to the U-bolts with my impact wrench, but the bolts were too tight to get started, so I had to use a breaker bar to break them loose. Once they were started I impacted them off without much hassle.
The tab on the straps that hold the leafs in alignment could be bent to release, so I didn't need to grind them off, and the center bolts broke when I tried to remove them. They are not reused, so this is not a problem. I used c-clamps to hold the packs together while I removed all of the hardware, and slowly released them to separate the leaves.
To figure out where to insert the add-a-leaf you need to see which leaves its length matches with. Most of the documentation I found suggested it would go right under the main leaf, but in my case it is the 3rd leaf down in the pack. I am leaving the angle shims off for now, since I'm not sure if they will be needed yet. Hopefully I won't need them since it will require redoing a lot of work to install them later.
Reassembly is the opposite of disassembly. I decided to retain the stock sway bar since it seemed to fit fine with the lift, and this is primarily a daily driver. When I removed the shocks I broke one of the bolts that hold the bar pins to the body, which is sure to be a pain in a couple days when I install the shocks.