2000 cherokee ride height

[95xjsport]

I have a friend who has a 2000 cherokee and (don't laugh but,) he wants to lower it a bit. He lives in the city area and it is only 2wd so he can't really take it off road. I'll probably be helping him out with that but, we can't find any info on how to lower it. any body know of any place?

[neon_rt]

I have tried to find info also. The best I could come up with was the suggestion to replace the front springs with springs from a 4cyl Wrangler. The Wrangler springs are slightly shorter. Also, for the back, you could pull out the leaf springs and remove one spring from the pack and re-install them. Lowering this way would also soften the ride significantly, so you may have to add upgraded sway bars to compensate.

[95xjsport]

I'm not exactly sure how to romove one of the leafs, how are they attached together? I have done front suspension before on my brothers 94 volvo 850. do you know how much it will drop it? I'm not sure how far he wants to go, I told him I would help him out as long as he dosn;t put those big ass rims on, he wanted 20" I guess 17" wouldn't look too bad...

[dave92cherokee]

If your friend is wanting to put 20's on his cherokee then I'd leave it factory height and put the 20's on and see how much space is left in the wheel well before lowering it any at all. If he wants to lower it and then decide what size wheels to put on it then he would have to do some searching for the lowering springs up front which would be the biggest problem. There's a number of different websites that come up saying they have lowering kits for grand cherokee's but not regular cherokee's, not sure if the springs would work or not but if he can find some lowering coil springs for the front then you could get lowered shocks for the back and get a lowering block kit which simply puts a block between the leaf spring and axle lifting the axle up lowering it that way and without the hassle of having to remove individual leafs which is extremely hard. If he is unable to find new coil springs for the front but is able to find new lowered shocks for front and back then he can take out the coil springs from the front and use a sawzaw with a new metal cutting blade on it and cut up to 1 1/2 coils out of the spring. But be warned that will give it a rough ride and is not reversible but very effective until right component can be found. If my XJ was 2wd then I'd just leave it at factory height and put some 20's on it with 30 series tires and leave it like that and if I wanted to fill up the wheel well then get bigger rims.

[95xjsport]

let me clear it up, he wanted 20s, I told him I though it would look kinda dumb so, he is going with smaller rims, I think 17s and lower it some.

[dave92cherokee]

17's would look to small unless he got bigger tires like around 50 or 60 series. But either way get the rims and tires wanted first and installed then measure how much clearance is available between the top of the tire and bottom of the outside of the wheel well and then crank the steering wheel all the way to each side and measure the clearances between the tire and inside wheel well and any components that might possibly touch after lowering it. Once everything is checked then see what springs can be found online for it and if none can be found then the coils can have part of the coil cut out to lower it. When cutting the coils 1/2 coil drops 1" and the max is 1 1/2 coil dropping it approx. 3", cut out any more than that and the coils will not fit back in properly. After the desired lowering is accomplished in the front go to an auto parts store like autozone and they have a lowering block kit that ranges from 1" to 3" and come with longer U bolts, support the rear on jack stands and then support one side of the axle on jack and unbolt and remove factory U bolts and jack up axle enough to get clearance to slide the block in then lower axle on block and install and tighten new U bolts. If a hand held grinder or cutting wheel is avaiable after fully tightening the new U bolts cut them off approx. 1 1/2" below the nuts to ease future removal.