I don't know that it's cheaper per say than tons to do from scratch. The big difference is you can probably find a set of JK 44s that already have some good aftermarket parts in em where as built tons almost never go on sale. If you keep an eye out you can even trip over aftermarket 44s like i did with my front Pro Rock 44 and they tend not to have too much of a premium attached to them.
I have indeed done the swap, I used a JKR rear and a JK prorock 44 front. If you are thinking about a long arm that replaces factory brackets like in a 3 link/4link kit, now is the time as none of the JK brackets are in the right spot for TJ use. One of the shops around here thought they were going to be able to use a TJ rock crawler kit to do the swap for someone and reuse the JK bracket. Turns out they have to cut everything off and start fresh after all. They ended up using a TJ axle swap bracket kit on it.
For mine I used the TMR Customs 3link/4link kit with metal cloak 3.5" springs and bilstine shocks. Generally I've been happy with it but there are a few changes I'd like to make. I didn't cut the trusses down as far as I could have and now have very little up travel because of it. On the other hand running an 11.6" shock up front with only 3" max of up travel means she flexes like a monster
Id recommended getting the axles in the truck, finding your max up travel point and your desired max down travel point, then buy shocks that fit the bill as closely as possible. That way you can still fine tune thinks with where you weld on the shock mounts.
Brakes are no big deal, JK, TJ, and YJ flex hoses are the same, the only difference is the lengths. And the JK has 4 instead of 3, for mine I ran the tj rear flex hose to the axle, took the TJ junction block that usually attaches to the breather barb. Welded a bolt to the axle tube to hold it and bent up custom lines, then used JK rear flex hoses to go from the hard lines to the caliper. They have a small metal tab on em that I bolted to the edge of the spring bucket to keep everything in place. However when I damaged one and couldn't find a replacement right away I used an aftermarket SS front hose from a JK and a clamp to hold it in place. What I'm getting at is your opinions are endless. I also have a road race Motorsports front big rotor kit to give me a bit more stopping power, teraflex has a nice one available as well.
Drive shafts I went full custom 1350 joints with new yokes for both tcase outputs and both pinions.
Sway bars, due to my suspension design, no factory sway bar fit, so I went antirock in the rear and swayloc in the front. I still had to modify one of the swayloc arms to clear my offset trackbar mount where as currie has prebent arms available.
Steering is a totally different animal and you will have to do a custom axle and probably also frame side track bar mount to get all the geometry correct. For me I have an extra couple of inches in length from the frame side mount and the axle side goes past the spring and almost touches the inner C on the passanger side. That length is important to not having horrendous bump steer as I tried to cheat the first time and get the angle correct but not cross over the front of the spring. As a result my drag link does need a slight bend to clear the TB bolt.
It's by no means a bolt in swap, don't think for a moment because it came from a jeep it'll be less work that tons from a Ford. But it does work well and I do wheel it constantly without brakeage. I do go through a lot of wheel bearings for some reason though.
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There must have been a time
when we could have said no.
It’s Ty..
