2004 Rubicon The Lost Scout

Took the LOD carrier off for now and installed the Morryde kit. I will swap out for another bumper here soon.

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So I had some rear vibration so installed these TC drops but after doing some research here. I don't think I should need these? Any body have any advice? Maybe I should remove these and do the body lift/mml instead? Also after installing this TC drop my shifter is really pushed back, just thinking out loud a little haha. It's driving great so thats a plus! Haha

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Looking great! I like the spice top on that color.

As far as your vibes go, even though the 241 doesn't need a slip yoke eliminator, you still need a CV or double cardan driveshaft with your lift. Also, you will then need to adjust your pinion angle to accommodate the CV/DC. Notice with the CV you want the pinion pointed at the t-case. When you read around on the forum there is range of angles that have worked best for different builds, so you may end up having to play with it a bit to find what best suits you.

As far as driveshafts go, I think Tom Woods is probably the favorite around here with Adam's being a pretty close second.

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Looking great! I like the spice top on that color.

As far as your vibes go, even though the 241 doesn't need a slip yoke eliminator, you still need a CV or double cardan driveshaft with your lift. Also, you will then need to adjust your pinion angle to accommodate the CV/DC. Notice with the CV you want the pinion pointed at the t-case. When you read around on the forum there is range of angles that have worked best for different builds, so you may end up having to play with it a bit to find what best suits you.

As far as driveshafts go, I think Tom Woods is probably the favorite around here with Adam's being a pretty close second.

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Thanks! Yeah I love this soft top, I am keeping my eyes open for a hard top though.

Thanks for all the info regarding the vibes, would love to keep getting your thoughts.

So previous owner mentioned it having a Tom Woods rear driveshaft and just from the info I can find online it looks to be true but I can’t seem to really get a definitive answer as there is no branding on the drive shaft itself. This photo is prior to me installing the TC drop. You can kind of see how bunched that front part of the drive shaft is. After the TC drop there is more more to give but I really don’t want to go the TC drop route. I also noticed that the rear wheels are not centered in the wheel well so maybe its a combo of that, no body lift?

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Thanks! Yeah I love this soft top, I am keeping my eyes open for a hard top though.

Thanks for all the info regarding the vibes, would love to keep getting your thoughts.

So previous owner mentioned it having a Tom Woods rear driveshaft and just from the info I can find online it looks to be true but I can’t seem to really get a definitive answer as there is no branding on the drive shaft itself. This photo is prior to me installing the TC drop. You can kind of see how bunched that front part of the drive shaft is. After the TC drop there is more more to give but I really don’t want to go the TC drop route. I also noticed that the rear wheels are not centered in the wheel well so maybe its a combo of that, no body lift?

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Well yep, you definitely have a double cardan driveshaft. It may be a Woods but I couldn't say for sure (someone else might now a way to tell without branding).

The pinion looks positioned pretty well but it could be just a minor angle change that would make the difference. As for the axle not being centered, you may be able to adjust your control arms (upper and lower) to slightly move the axle back to center, but with short arms there becomes a limit where this is possible based on the acceptable amount of adjustment for your arms. I don't know what the maximum thread visibility for the Currie arms is but you may be able to find it in your instructions or online. There can also be other issues as you do this and rotate the axle, such as trackbar clearance on the gas tank, shocks hitting coil seats, and just general tweaking of the springs as the seats become misaligned.

Yours looks to sit pretty high for a 4", but I think the Currie is usually pretty accurate. How much has it been driven since you installed the Currie kit? Did you wait to tighten the control arm hardware until it was on the ground on its weight? If not, the arms could be binding and causing it to sit a touch higher?

Edit to add since I just realized you don't have a body lift. You also might look at doing a motor mount lift (MML). You can do it without a body lift but you have to make some adjustments to your fan shroud to avoid interference. If all others are good, a MML is probably your best route.
 
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Well yep, you definitely have a double cardan driveshaft. It may be a Woods but I couldn't say for sure (someone else might now a way to tell without branding).

The pinion looks positioned pretty well but it could be just a minor angle change that would make the difference. As for the axle not being centered, you may be able to adjust your control arms (upper and lower) to slightly move the axle back to center, but with short arms there becomes a limit where this is possible based on the acceptable amount of adjustment for your arms. I don't know what the maximum thread visibility for the Currie arms is but you may be able to find it in your instructions or online. There can also be other issues as you do this and rotate the axle, such as trackbar clearance on the gas tank, shocks hitting coil seats, and just general tweaking of the springs as the seats become misaligned.

Yours looks to sit pretty high for a 4", but I think the Currie is usually pretty accurate. How much has it been driven since you installed the Currie kit? Did you wait to tighten the control arm hardware until it was on the ground on its weight? If not, the arms could be binding and causing it to sit a touch higher?

Edit to add since I just realized you don't have a body lift. You also might look at doing a motor mount lift (MML). You can do it without a body lift but you have to make some adjustments to your fan shroud to avoid interference. If all others are good, a MML is probably your best route.

Thanks for all this great info! So I ended up getting it installed at a shop and I think they had it on a rack when tightening but I can’t say for sure. I know they were messing with the rear arms as it was causing some rubbing on what you mentioned, the tracbar, gas, etc. I also noticed that my shocks have been rubbing as well so I might need to get those shock brackets I have seen on some sites. They had to cut my exhaust too which is now on the list of things to do.

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Thanks for all this great info! So I ended up getting it installed at a shop and I think they had it on a rack when tightening but I can’t say for sure. I know they were messing with the rear arms as it was causing some rubbing on what you mentioned, the tracbar, gas, etc. I also noticed that my shocks have been rubbing as well so I might need to get those shock brackets I have seen on some sites. They had to cut my exhaust too which is now on the list of things to do.

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There's not a lot of love around here for the relocation brackets because they are only a bandaid fix that actually reduces your shock travel. Depending on your budget, you may look into relocating shock and spring mounts. In this case your current mounts would be cut off and new mounts would be welded on in the appropriate location to better align them. And/or outboard your rear shocks. There's a bunch of threads but I've not dove into them much so I don't know much on that other than it can be a can of worms.

If you have some basic tools and a torque wrench you could loosen the control arm bolts, drop it down onto the ground, and retorque them just to eliminate that possibility.
 
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You had a shop do that install and they let it leave with the track bar hitting the crossmember and the shocks hitting? Time to crawl under there and start figuring out how it all works. Nobody will care as much about it being right except for you. Lots of people here can help you make sense of it.

For one thing, the wheels not being centered in the wheel well at ride height is pretty common with a 4" lift and short arms. Reason is that you set your arm length to clear everthing and line up with bumpstops at full compression. Once you come up to ride height, the arms pull the axle forward a little bit (because the arms pivot around the front mounting point).

As far as the vibs go, you just gotta adjust the arms a little bit, probably. Do you know if its your front shaft or your rear shaft? Pull the front and take it for a drive. If the vibs go away, you know where to look.
 
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I hope this turns out. In the pic I drew a line. your pinion angle looks to high. I did this to mine at first also. If anything a few degrees low is better as the torque on the pinion during driving increases the rear pinion. Plus when you bring the pinion down your track bar will clear the gas tank, and things will line up better. Again I did that same thing and my track bar clears by 1/2 inch now and shocks line up much better. I did still cut the coil spring lower buckets to give the shock shafts more clearance.

Great looking Jeep!
 
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You had a shop do that install and they let it leave with the track bar hitting the crossmember and the shocks hitting? Time to crawl under there and start figuring out how it all works. Nobody will care as much about it being right except for you. Lots of people here can help you make sense of it.

For one thing, the wheels not being centered in the wheel well at ride height is pretty common with a 4" lift and short arms. Reason is that you set your arm length to clear everthing and line up with bumpstops at full compression. Once you come up to ride height, the arms pull the axle forward a little bit (because the arms pivot around the front mounting point).

As far as the vibs go, you just gotta adjust the arms a little bit, probably. Do you know if its your front shaft or your rear shaft? Pull the front and take it for a drive. If the vibs go away, you know where to look.

Thanks again for all the great info, yeah I took it to the shop with the mindset of "oh I just want it all done right." haha. Now that I understand the problem a little more I will start to take all this info from everyone here and play with it some more. So I am fairly certain the old vibrations I was getting was in the rear. I was getting the vibes more on my lower back feeling. Once I put the TC drop, the vibes decreases/went away immediately. Which I think is good for now but like you mentioned, it feels like a bandaid fix and not ideal.

I feel like my next go do's would be something like this?:
Body lift & motor mount
Remove TC drop
Adjust arms
 
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I hope this turns out. In the pic I drew a line. your pinion angle looks to high. I did this to mine at first also. If anything a few degrees low is better as the torque on the pinion during driving increases the rear pinion. Plus when you bring the pinion down your track bar will clear the gas tank, and things will line up better. Again I did that same thing and my track bar clears by 1/2 inch now and shocks line up much better. I did still cut the coil spring lower buckets to give the shock shafts more clearance.

Great looking Jeep!

I will grab another photo of what it looks like once I installed the TC Drop (this photo was taken before that) just to see what you think to compare. I do think the TC drop is a bandaid fix but it did eliminate a lot of the vibes I was getting. As far as the tracbar and all that. That is still a mystery to me on how best to adjust all that. I think I will cut the coil bucket a bit. The interference seems to be small on mine. But I don't like the tracbar up against the tank like that... That seems to be asking for it. How did you remedy the clearance of all that?
 
I don't like the tracbar up against the tank like that... That seems to be asking for it. How did you remedy the clearance of all that?

think about a seesaw, if you lower the front of your pinion, the back (trackbar mount) will rotate away (up and forward) from the gas tank giving you the clearance you need. The same will go for the shocks. The lower mount will come up and back, which rotates your shock shafts away from the axle tube. One adjustment will make it come together better then you can fine tune as needed.
 
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Nice Jeep. You are going to learn a lot working on it yourself.And this place has all the help you need. I ended up having to order a different rear trackbar bracket and adjust the control arm to clear my tank. Mine was in the tank bad.I also had to clearance the coil buckets for shocks.

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I actually installed the Currie one in this photo, but its rubbing on that pass side. Looks good to me on the driver side. Also just realized I need to clean this tank skid lol

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Thanks again for all the great info, yeah I took it to the shop with the mindset of "oh I just want it all done right." haha. Now that I understand the problem a little more I will start to take all this info from everyone here and play with it some more. So I am fairly certain the old vibrations I was getting was in the rear. I was getting the vibes more on my lower back feeling. Once I put the TC drop, the vibes decreases/went away immediately. Which I think is good for now but like you mentioned, it feels like a bandaid fix and not ideal.

I feel like my next go do's would be something like this?:
Body lift & motor mount
Remove TC drop
Adjust arms

A body lift is fine, but its not going to help with D/S related vibrations. If you need it for tire clearance though, go for it. A motor mount lift WILL have a chance to help with your vibrations...and can be installed without a body lift. You'll have to redrill or slot the fan shroud to keep the gap between it and the fan.

Then remove the T/C drop and start dialing in pinion angle. I would pull my front D/S just to make sure I knew what I was chasing. Get the rear done, then put the front D/S in and see what happens. Dial that in.

You will feel D/S vibrations in your lower back no matter which shaft is causing them. Also, a T/C drop will change the operating angle of BOTH driveshafts. We tend to focus on the rear because its so much shorter, but from a bunch of reading on the board, a lot of people have problems with the front shaft. At this point, you still don't know which one (or both) is causing your issues.

Get the pinion angle right first. Then we can start helping you with clearance for the trackbar and shocks.
 
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So I took the TCDrop off to start to dial in the angles and install the Savvy cable kit. I think I installed the kit right haha there were no instructions so it was a little confusing to get everything the right length. Seems to be shifting a lot easier but did get stuck in 4hi so I had to readjust. I took measurements of the angles and I am getting 24 on the driveshaft and 19 on the axle. 24 seems really high? Does anyone know which arm I should adjust? Lowers I think to point the axle up but just wanted to double check. Thanks!

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Alright so ended up getting my drive shafts balanced and adjusted the arms. The vibrations are in a good spot. Still get them nearing 65+ mph but I think that’s just the nature of the beast haha. It’s driving really nice right now.

Also installed ARB air compressor.

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