Taking my baby off of the low carb diet!!!

[Tombredone]

Ok,, I have lifted my '82 CJ-5 by 4" and now it looks like a pine tree,, tall and skinny. I know of some people that have swapped axle assemblies from other vehicles to widen out the trac... But I don't know what type of vehicle they came from? Any ideas of what to do best to widen the bottom out with out added strain to joints or hubs and axles????

with a mild budget in mind of course...

thanks
thomas

 

[Jeeper84]

Well with the rear axle you can just knock off the spring mounts and make new ones to fit your CJ's frame. The hard one is the front axle. You'll have to outboard your springs. I'm not exactly sure how to do it, but I know you have to do some frame welding. It can get pretty expensive, I mean, you might as well just upgrade axles and go SOA with the springs. I'm sorta in the same boat as you. I'm trying to upgrade, but I dont know how to weld fabricate stuff. Good Luck! -Mike

 

[Junkpile]

The cheapest thing you could do would be to swap in the axles from an 82-86 CJ-7 or an 82-85 CJ-8. Bolt in. The wide track axles combined with a 10" rim looks nice under the short CJ-5.

 

[Joopin]

Dont the Yjs have a longer WMS to WMS than the CJs? I know the YJs are 60 Inches... my thought would be get your hands on some YJ axles... but I'm not sure if they swap right in.

 

[Junkpile]

I would have to look at my chart at the shop, but I believe narrow track CJ width is around 55.5", wide track is around 58", and the YJ is 60" like Joopin said. The YJ front diff is on the wrong side, and it uses wider front springs and a different steering setup. No hubs and vacuum actuation. It also has a different wheel bolt pattern. Even though Tombredone has an 82 model, they didn't put the widetrack axles in the CJ-5s, so just swapping to them is a boost in track width and it is VERY easy.