Liberty Rig (Solid Axle)

Troysterr · **Posted:** Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:50 am

SethX9 wrote:

Great Pics.....now could someone please address the question that started this thread?

Which question are you talking about? All is see is a request for any hints or information related to doing an IFS conversion. I think all or most of the posts that have been made so far have been related to that request.

kyro · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:45 am

fireblad1 good luck with the mod make sure you take pics and list every thing you do so others can see whats involved

SethX9 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:40 am

Ooops...my bad...I meant to refer to my question at the top of the page not the start of the whole thread. I'm just wondering if it is going to be easier and cheaper to swap out for a solid axle than it would be to mod the IFS to allow for, say, a 4" lift.

sorry for the confusion....

PinchFlat · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:23 pm

Tokyojoe wrote:

That's one heck of an awesome looking Liberty with A SFA!

The question is: Did he ever have problems with it? Did it hold up to the rigors of off-roading over a long battery of tests?

I parked neer it Saturday night in town at a local resturaunt. He now has what looks to be a custom made ARB type bumper on front and I think some 36" mudders. It makes my '02 look like grandmas jeep. :oops:

Troysterr · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:44 pm

SethX9 wrote:

Ooops...my bad...I meant to refer to my question at the top of the page...

Ah, I see...that makes sense.

I believe it's physically possible to create a 4" lift that is less expensive and easier to install than an SFA swap, but so far noone has done it. We keep hearing rumors that someone (Superlift?) is working on one, but who knows if it will ever materialize. The biggest concern is that, even if you build a 4-5" lift that would allow you to fit 33's, it's unlikely that the D30a would be strong enough.

RockCrawler's 7" lift is outrageously expensive and diffiicult to install...and retains the stock D30a. So I have very little doubt that the lift that Wally keeps alluding to will be less-expensive and easier to install, and will actually work offroad. I know that Jedijeeper spent a pretty penny on his SFA swap, but probably less than RockCrawler's lift. But he really knew what he was doing.

The short answer is that there is no way to lift your KJ more than 3" (2.5" prelowered) for under $4,000, AFAIK. Hopefully that will change soon.

TheChucklesStart · **Posted:** Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:52 am

Does anyone think that there will be different springs for the SFA so that people can get different size lifts from it, or do you think that we will have to find different size springs elsewhere?

fireblad1 · **Joined:** Mon Jul 11, 2005 10:04 am **Posts:** 74

Hello friends just as an update all the rk junk has come off except for the rear I already modified the rear arms so the tires dont pull off the rear side fenders and it looks allright, the whole front is off I receive the pices next week and th front diferential will be one of a cherokee. I will start putting the pictures of the process next week in the same link with all the rk things that happened. The new pictures will be in the folder that says part2.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/raltamirano1999/my_photos
I hope I have it all finished in the next 3 weeks.

JediJeeper · **Posted:** Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:20 pm

Hey Fireblad,

One thing I should point out is that you probably will not be able to use the steering gear you have mentioned... It turns out that there is a very limited amount of space you can actually use up front to hold the box and still have it line up with the output of your steering column. Because of this space issue, you need to have a "reverse" worm gear steering gear so that you can tuck the box up into the unibody and have the pitman arm go straight out in front of the gear. On a normal gear box with out the "reverse" worm, if you swap the pitman arm around so that it goes out the front, the wheels will turn left when you turn the wheel to the right :-)

(yeah it's fun... but its a total b$$tch on the freeway). This is all assuming you will use a standard steering knuckle setup on your front axle, the axle you described that you will be using is such.

The steering gear that I found that worked (asside from spending almost 700.00 on a custom one from Texas) was a Saginaw steering gear from a 1970s(don't recall the year exactly) Ford 4x4 Van. It is actually the exact same Saginaw body that the chev one you mentioned is... but the guts are backwards.

Other than that, the rest of your components seem like they should be able to be applied. Although... you may consider a little narrower axle set up while you are at it, something in the 58inch WMF to WMF, but that is just a suggestion. The reason for it is... now that you will have a little different caliper setup on the front, you will be able to run 15" wheels, and they do not come in the backspace (typically) that the Libby 16s require. I say all this if you plan on not having the meat hanging outside the flares... if you are like me and really really like that look :-)

then by all means go for about 64-68" WMF to WMF (mine is 68).

Three weeks is a good time estimate if you will have a lot of time to devote to the project, otherwise, plan on about 4-5 weeks :-)

There are some serious head scratchers you will encounter :-)

Well good luck, I am interested in seeing how it turns out!
-JediJeeper

PS: LibertyN8.... see, told you I would post something sometime :-)

uvalax236 · **Posted:** Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:39 am

Glad to see you back on the board again. One question, what ever happend to your SFA Kit plans that you sold? Is the company making the kit? Is your website with the wright-up still online somewhere? Thanks!

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Sat Sep 03, 2005 9:51 am

Also, what was the estimated cost to do the switch to SFA for you?

JediJeeper · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:22 pm

To make a long story short... I have regained the rights to my SFA design. The "un-named" lift company will not be selling my design due to some serious monetary short comings on their end.

So, I plan on doing one-at-a-time custom installs for folks who want to fork up the cash, and just wheeling the heck out of my KJ the rest of the time :-)

I do recall that I posted the amount of cash it took to build it up before (numerous times to numerous inquiries), but since the forum db got scrubbed, I will do it one LAST time.

Without wheels and tires, I spent roughly $3,500 dollars on parts to do the front and rear with long arm suspension. This includes the purchase of the full-width D44 High Pinion for up front and the full-width D60 in the rear. This also includes the rear disc brake conversion that I did when I built the axle up.

In fact, here is a basic parts list that went into it:

High Pinon D44 front axle from Ford f-250
Rear D60 axle housing from Ford f-350
Teraflex TJ Long arm suspension arms X7
Teraflex super-joints X14
Detroit D44 Locker
D60 Spool
4.88:1 gear sets for both axle housings
Saginaw steering gear
4" lift coil springs for a 2000 Grand Cherokee (Teraflex) X4
Various 3/8, 1/2 and 1/4 inch plate steel
Urethane bushings for custom front track bar
36" braided steel brake lines X3
Custom CV joint front drive shaft
Custom CV jiont rear drive shaft
SLE kit for the 242 t-case
Custom built 1/2" plate diff covers
Aluminum hex tube custom steering drag and pitman links

Thats a pretty broad list, but covers the things that are not just understood, like front bearing kits, gaskets, various tubing etc.

I will post the link for the web site... um... just as soon as I install a new 'pache, Tomcat, Mysql and some stuff on the new webapp server I just built :-)

Out,
-Adam

AusJeepa · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:51 pm

Hey Adam,

Feel like making a trip to australia. :lol:

Mine's out of lease early next year and I am very very very temted to go that way with it.

Good to see you've got the rights to the kit back.

TheChucklesStart · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:31 pm

JediJeeper,
Have you worked with the other guys who are working on making a solid axel conversion?

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:59 pm

If you pay for his trip to Australia also, he'd be crazy to turn you down.

Adam, how does the ride, comfort, and on-road handling of your conversion to stock, compare?

chefdab · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:22 am

So what about us poor schleps on the east coast? My wife would kill me to drive all the way out there to get JediJeeper to do my SFA. Would you sell a copy of the plans so we could get a local fabrication shop to build it for us?

JediJeeper · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:14 pm

Autralia sounds fine, believe it or not I have been trying to talk my wife into moving to Australia. She is still not sold on the idea, but I am :-)

Selling the plans is out, according to my attorney (or brother-in-law who is one and give me free advice), it's too hard to control where they go from there and who actually has rights to them. Sorry man. Really there are only a few parts that are really tricky, mostly the front spring buckets and the subframe boxes.

Ride: obviously, not as nice as what it was stock, but definitely livable. I usually have the front sway bar completely disconnected so it is a bit squishy around turns, but my wife still likes to drive it so I guess it is not too bad :-)

It is definitely a little more top heavy being up there as it is, but the extra axle width mostly compensates for it.

-Adam

LibertyN8 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:07 pm

JediJeeper wrote:

PS: LibertyN8.... see, told you I would post something sometime :-)

Welcome back man!

Fouros · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:15 pm

JediJeeper wrote:

Autralia sounds fine, believe it or not I have been trying to talk my wife into moving to Australia. She is still not sold on the idea, but I am :-)

tell her the moove would be a good on

my boss emigrated from europe about 3 years ago and now he does not like going back :lol:

heaps of space plenty of places to wheel , you just gotta learn some aussie english

we do NOT root for out favorite team

to us this is rooting

CarNutCertifies · **Posted:** Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:14 am

JediJeeper....Why don't you put together the kits and sell them yourself? You could do a kit with just the bare essentials with a required parts list and sell that? Ie sell the springs and brackty but leave out the axles.

Eddo · **Joined:** Thu Jul 07, 2005 7:01 pm **Posts:** 1214

Probably be less expensive in parts, if just a high pinion dana 30 was used and the stock rear axle w/ about 4-5" of lift. That way you can run 33s and have a good cross between a trail vehicle and something you can drive everyday.

Liberty Rig (Solid Axle)

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