Front Suspension and New Bumper

After a busy month at work, I took this week off to do some work on the Jeep. Today, KatC and I replaced the front suspension. Here is the original front suspension; the important components shown here are the shock, the spring (and rubber bump-stop inside the spring), and the anti-sway-bar end, from left to right:


The first step, of course, is to remove all the old stuff. In addition, I detached the lower control arms so that I could lower the axle farther in order to remove the spring without a coil compressor. Here it is, after everything was removed:


Installing, as they say, is simply the reverse of the disassembly process :-) The really tricky part was installing the spring without using a spring compressor. I found that there are a couple of places on the axle where you can balance a pry bar to pop the spring over the lower pedestal. Note that I have not yet torqued everything to spec - just like in the rear suspension, I want to get some weight in it and bounce it over a curb a couple of times to settle everything before I torque it down. Note that I will likely have to replace or lengthen the vertical anti-sway bar end - see Nick's note at DriveEV on his experience lifting his Cherokee for electric conversion.


And here is the fully lifted Jeep (in the garage - it's too hard to move it back and forth just for pictures):


I also took some time today to install a new rear bumper. Nothing really to do with converting it to electric, but it sure makes the rear end look nicer!


Compare it to the old bumper as seen in this picture: