Well had a rather interesting day,had a fellow KJ'er with the JBA 6" lift come by today(from KC) with a problem when accelerating in 4wd and climbing hills in 4wd.His problem was the front end drooped so far(6"+) that it would max out his cut JE REEL CV's and make a nice clicking sound,as soon as I get the vid I will upload and it's amazing the amount the front end rises and the rear end does not squat at all.Well after racking our brains for like 2 hours(Marty and I) and watching how my KJ reacts we came to the conclusion that the front cut UCA pockets where the cause of the whole problem,meaning to much droop.The outer CV joint was to blame,not the inner,and would move the whole front diff side to side about a total of 1/2".Now how to limit the flex on a IFS while maintaining lift height is not a easy task,limiting straps are out since there is no good and strong place to attach them.The fix was to rebuild the bottom lip of the front UCA pocket so the UCA does not droop as much.Now many will say this harms the UCA,no it does not as I have not cut my pockets and the UCA has rested on the bottom lip and has slightly bent it over creating a big area to limit the droop with no harm,and the fact that 48,000miles(with many on hard trails) on my UCA's with no damage attests to that statement.

Here are the pieces we made for the job........


Here is the front UCA pocket preped for welding..................


Welded on................


Finished.................



As you can see the 30 degree bend allows for a large contact surface as not to harm the UCA,we did add some rubber on top to add to the cushioning.

The pic below is how the UCA sits at normal rid height,kinda pointed way up.




Well after the little brackets were welded in place the noise is gone and he only lost about 1" of droop,better to loose 1" of droop and keep your CV's happy.IFS sucks,everyone SFA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome. That gave me some ideas just reading that. I wonder if you could run a limiting strap around the top of the strut mount and back down the coil? Putting pads on the pockets will also help reduce noise. nice work!

JBA 6in with 'too' much flex...... *nice*

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2006 Renegade. Completely stock.

interesting for sure

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MUDD'S MOTORSPORT'S We do IFS lift installs ,
03 OVERLAND EDITION /Kilby-Skidrow-Mopar-4XGuard skids/ 2.5 inch TOTAL CONTROL JBA coilovers -JBA Arms/MOABS-31 FALKEN WILDPEAK AT3W / 4.10's etc, 04 Kilimanjaro Edition loaded, plus 05 KJ limited

awesome! did you guys do that to all 4 pockets?

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2002 Cactus Green Renegade~OME HD/Rancho
235-85-16 Firestone Destination MT's~Detroit Locker~AL's 4.5 Arms
ARB bumper/Superwinch 9k~PIAA 540 driving lights/PIAA reverse lights~Crane 8.25 diff cover

No,only the front pockets since they where the only ones that where cut for more UCA travel.


Oh and a side note out of five 6" kits out there this is the 1st and only one that has had this problem,why I don't know and at least one other is wheeled(joejeepers) on a regular basis so maybe the others are just mall crawlers I don't know.I was also amazed at how much flex the 6" kit has,Rock Lizard needs to get me the video and you can see the front end litterly rising about 6"+ when he get's on the throttle from a dead stop.Still kinda Leary about that knuckle spacer but so far it seams there are no issues with them,they are beefy and the bottom part is tapered like the ball joint so that was a relief.

Nice job! I have the Gen 5 arms which are bent differentlly so I wonder if that's why I haven't had a problem? My boot came off driver's side (first time) lower clamp failed and I have thought of limiting straps.

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Joe
L.O.S.T. #000391
2000 Jeep Wrangler Sport with hooks, skids, trac-lok rear.

My Gen 5 arms were hitting on the tops of the pockets but I stopped that with the Tereflex extended bump stops.

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Joe
L.O.S.T. #000391
2000 Jeep Wrangler Sport with hooks, skids, trac-lok rear.

I do not know if Mark had GENV or GEN4.5 arms on.The problem with limiting straps is there is no strong place to mount them on the front,the LCA is out since you will weakin it by drilling a hole in it and the unibody will rip after time if bolted on there.Compression was not a issue,his bumbstops stopped the upward travel before full compression,just had a amazing amount of droop .

So basically, by adding the welded A-arm stop, this reduced the amount of drop and therefore fixed the problem. If Tokyojoe is not having these same problems and he didn‘t cut his pockets, then this would lead me to believe that cutting the pocket could be part of the problem. Doesn’t all 6” JBA kits come with the Gen 5’s? So wouldn’t the KJ in this thread already have the Gen 5’s? If I understand correctly, the Frankenlift limits the downward travel due to the struts, right? On the other hand, the 6” JBA struts will allow the suspension to have more drop, therefore allowing the A-arms to extend downward. I think the big question is to find out whether or not the KJ in question has the 4.5 or 5 JBA A-arms.

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2015 Ram Ecodiesel/Big Horn/4x4/Quad Cab
2016 Arctic Fox 22G/Onboard 2500 LP Cummins Onan Generator/160 Watt Solar Panel

I took the road less traveled. Now I'm LOST.

So maybe the pockets didn't need to be cut out in the first place.

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David
Bel Air,Md
2003 KJ Patriot Blue Sport w/mods R.I.P.
2005 Wrangler Unlimited not so stock
L.O.S.T. #082670
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/803306
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2399643
More mods planned than money.
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"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads."

But if you do not cut them yhen they will hit on a very little piece of metal which I would think could cause problems in the long run, OR cut and install a piece like they did for it to hit on

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MUDD'S MOTORSPORT'S We do IFS lift installs ,
03 OVERLAND EDITION /Kilby-Skidrow-Mopar-4XGuard skids/ 2.5 inch TOTAL CONTROL JBA coilovers -JBA Arms/MOABS-31 FALKEN WILDPEAK AT3W / 4.10's etc, 04 Kilimanjaro Edition loaded, plus 05 KJ limited

I've been hitting my pockets for 4 years with no issues.The JBA UCA has slightly flattened the bottom part of the front pockets to make a larger area to distribute the load on the UCA without damaging the UCA.Basically what we did on Marks 6" lift but mine did it naturally.