Well I'm looking to put my Aev 4.5 lift on soon and ive heard that people are replacing there front drive shafts and some are still running stock. So is it one of those replace it when it fails kind of thing? My jeep is my daily driver and does not see that my off roaring (yet).

So what should I do? Replace it or run stock?

 

4.5" is a lot of lift and if you don't replace it with an aftermarket shaft, you will end up having it make contact with your tranny skid and sump pan the very first time you go off road. this is will cause the boot on the shaft to get torn off and/or will end up causing the lip of your sump pan to eventually peel down a bit causing a leak. this is not a "maybe" but rather, an eventual guarantee. having said that, most people just deal with the problem when it becomes a problem.

 

I would take a cutoff wheel and get rid of the lip when doing the lift to eliminate the problem with the auto tranny pan.

 

with 4.5" of lift, you would have to get rid of a lot more than just the lip.

 

He's right.

I cut off about 8" x 2" of my auto tranny skid and I only have 3" of suspension and it still makes contact.



Here is where the auto tranny tore my boot:

 

damn pluke, i was just looking for pics like this - thanks for posting them up.

 

The lift kit we did on the 2010 2dr Rubi had us totally remove that skid plate, now I see why it said take it off, we were wondering why it had to go.

 

Good info. Since it's winter I won't be dong any wheeling. Looks like ill run it till spring.

What drive shafts are people running. Ive seen the Tom woods and Tera flex. But I have no idea what to look for in a drive shaft.

 

tom woods does a great job of marketing his drive shafts and offers pretty good customer service and has taken him a long way. having said that, i can tell you his shafts and customer service really aren't any better than a lot of the other companies out there. me, i have installed and/or run coast, je reel, teraflex, tom woods and rubicon express shafts and they have all been good products. right now, i am still running coast 1310 shafts on my orange JK and je reel 1350's on my white JK. in other words, you'll probably be fine with whatever you get

btw, here's a write-up that should help you out:

http://project-jk.com/jeep-jk-write-...ation-write-up