To cure the control arm rub, we used new wheels with less backspacing. Easy enough, but now the new tire and wheel assemblies were pushed farther away from the ball joints (the pivot points while turning). This causes the tires to swing in a wide arc when making sharp turns which reduces fenderwell clearance. To picture this concept, imagine your wrist as the ball joints. With your fingers extended, move your wrist back and forth and notice the wide arc the tips of your fingers make. Now try it again while making a fist and observe how much smaller the arc is. This is the difference in backspacing of the wheels. You can see how the decreased backspacing of our new wheels eliminated the control arm rub, but made the fenderwell-rub much worse. One problem solved, one problem worsened.

There is only one way to fix fenderwell rub, and that's to lift the Jeep higher. Due to the XJ's unibody construction there is no way to install a body lift. With that option non-existent, we started shopping for another suspension lift.

We have heard a lot of good things lately about Rancho Suspension's coil-spring Jeep lift kits. We are very pleased with our TJ Project's 2.5" Rancho lift, so we decided to look into a similar lift for our 1994 XJ Project. As many of you already know, we're not big fans of add-a-leaf kits as a method of lifting a vehicle. For us, it's replacement leaf spring packs or nothing at all. Fortunately, Rancho gives a choice of rear lift methods for the Cherokee to fit any budget. Select from a replacement spring pack, add-a-leaf, or lift block setup. After taking a look at Rancho's very soft spring rates (240 lbs.\in. front, 186 lbs.\in. rear for the replacement rear springs) we decided to give their kit a try.

Our kit contained new front coils, lower control arms, transfer case drop kit, rear springs packs, and rear U-bolts (some of these components are optional and do not come with the standard kit. Be sure to ask your local shop what is included in the kit for the quoted price). Installation of the kit is a snap. The entire job was done in about 4 hours working alone with common hand tools. After a quick test drive, we found it necessary to install the transfer case lowering brackets to eliminate an annoying driveshaft vibration.

We had every intention of trying out Rancho's new RSX shocks with our lift kit, both to satisfy our curiosity and to pass along the results to our readers. The problem is, they didn't fit. The same model RSX shock is supposed to fit a Cherokee with 0-3 inches of lift. The front shock was at maximum extension with the 3" lifted XJ sitting on level ground. This would not allow any downward suspension travel, or droop, at all. Needless to say, the RSX shocks were immediately removed. After taking some measurements of the Jeep and determining the correct shock length, we studied Rancho's catalog for about 15 minutes to find the appropriate RS9000 shocks.

It quickly became apparent that our RS9000 options were extremely limited due to the bar pin used to mount the Cherokee shocks. We were unable to find a shock of the desired length with the appropriate bar pin mount. Our solution was to trash the bar pins. We purchased some JKS bar-pin eliminators at our local 4x4 shop, which allow the use of a standard 5/8" hole bushing end instead of the bar-pin. We now had plenty of shock options. With measurements in hand, we chose Rancho #9168 (YJ Wrangler) front shocks and #9125 (Bronco II) rear shocks. These shocks allow plenty of droop and compression travel on our Cherokee.

The end result is that our Cherokee sits level again (the OME kit left the Jeep's rear end higher than the front) and it has enough room to clear our 31" tires. The ride is surprisingly smooth and balanced with the shocks set on the "Number 2" setting. With the front swaybar disconnected, articulation is very good off road with both axles. All in all, we have no complaints about this lift kit. We don't feel it has the refinement of the OME kits, but it does offer us the extra height we needed along with a price hundreds less than Rancho's Australian competition.

I apologize for the lack of pictures of our Cherokee with the Rancho kit installed. I recently had the misfortune of breaking my leg and it has left me couch-bound and unable to drive due to a cast up to my hip. As soon as I'm recovered, we'll be back four wheeling again. Check out our '94 XJ Project page for updated pictures as soon as this cast is off!