Advice on a 4.5" Rough Country Lift?

RancidPDX

New Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2022
Messages
3
Location
Lethbridge
I've owned my bone stock 91 Jeep Renegade for 15 yrs and it was time to give it a make over b/c there is barely any metal left and I refused to scrap it (ie. so i'm in the process of doing a complete, frame-off restoration). Currently I've repaired a good scrap yard frame and sent it off to be sand blasted and painted while I am trying to figure out the right combination of suspension lift/body lift//wheels/tires/fender flares that will work best.

The problem is that I want to put 35" tires under it on 17" rims but there are a bunch of things that I need to figure out and it is important that I get the look right the 1st time...so I have a bunch of questions and it would be super helpful if people could post a pic of their rig with their mods so I can get a sense of what they look like and how it all came together. This jeep when complete will probably be used 85% on-road (city) 10% hwy and 5% off road...so I'm not going for a hardcore, purpose-built off-road machine...I just want a fun, off-road capable Jeep that looks kewl.

Basically I'd like to know the following:

1) Is a 4.5" suspension lift (Rough Country) sufficient to clear 35" tires w/o rubbing?...or will I likely need a 2" body lift as well?

2) Will a slip yolk eliminator be a must or can i get away without it if I am not doing hardcore off-road?

3) What width of rims did you go with and/or what would you recommend? (Note: I want to avoid more than 2" of tire sticking past the fender flares... and all the associated tickets).

4) What off-sets/back spacing did you use or would you recommend?

5) What brand/size of fender flare do you have and/or what would you recommend? FYI: Ultimately I'd like to paint the fender flares to match (metallic khaki - inspired by the Quadratec YJL) to keep a bit of the Renegade feel...so I'd be curious to hear from anyone that has painted their aftermarket fender flares.

So, if you've got a YJ w/ 35" tires, I love to hear your thoughts!

Cheers,

Ran

91 Jeep YJ.jpg


quadratec-yjl-1.jpg
 
Get er done. Curoius what that edition with the body work looks like lifted and on 35's or are you gonna rip it all off? I will say your D35 will not like the 35" tires or the mega OD it ends up having with 35's. Id say youd need a sye as well. Being TJ's and YJ's sit close to the same stock you might venture over to the TJ side of things for some pics and lift help if things are slim picking here.
 
Thanks Gil,

All the Renegade plastic will be gone so I need to figure out the width of fender flares that will be required to prevent me from having more than 2" of tire sticking out but before that I need to finalize rim widths w/ appropriate back spacing/off-sets. Suggestions?
 
Sounds like a cool project. Are you from Lethbridge, Alberta? I grew up in Calgary and now live in California. Looks like a really clean Renegade. Think about selling it stock on bringatrailer.com and use the proceeds to fund your project…or just sell the body kit piece by piece on eBay…I have seen them selling for $350 per fender.
 
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Yup Leth, AB. lol, it actually looks WAY cleaner than it is b/c it's got 300 000 km on it, the frame was like Swiss cheese and there was no metal fenders or floor left in it (I just always tried to keep her looking good). A sane person would have just scrapped it but I've had her for 15 yrs, driven her from coast to coast in Canada and I decided to undertake a frame off restoration w/ a complete make-over. That's good advice about selling the the fenders/bumbers though b/c while I couldn't bring myself to scrap them, I seriously doubt that i'll ever wanna bolt them back on.
 
I would highly recommend against the RC 4.5”. The reason it’s so affordable is due to the big compromises that it’s made up of. 3” springs and a giant 1.5” shackle lift. My buddy got a used RC 4.5 kit and the long shackles they give you made his steering caster go from 7° down to -1°. That will make handling absolutely abysmal. Go with a real lift like rubicon express and plan on adding a 1.25” body lift.

The stress of 35’s on the driveline combined with the poor angles of a lift makes the SYE a very good idea. I’ve seen it countless times where the driveshaft rips out of the transfer case after a while on the stock design due to the lift and heavy stressful tires.

17’s don’t have many width options. Usually 8.5” or 9”. I’d go 8 or 8.5” if possible. The problem is on 35’s no matter how you run them they are going to want to turn into the leaf springs on tight turns so you’ll need to limit the steering stops for them regardless. Either way, I don’t have a rec for a good 17. I’d love to go 17’s for the good tire options but I can’t find a good 17” rim that makes it worth going to.

Backspacing comes back to rim selection. You don’t get to choose much. Somewhere around 4” on an 8” wide rim would be good but you really don’t have many options. Many 17’s are more like 4.5-5” of BS and the YJ springs don’t have clearance for that on such a large tire. So try to find something 17x8 on 4” if you can and still plan on limiting the steering stops.

Since you have a renegade it’s going to be harder than usual to clear large tires. You can yank the flares for something else but you will see a ton of holes in the body when you pull those off (the Renegade contractor installed them with a bunch of fasteners). So I don’t really have a recommendation for you there but something like 6” wide would cover 35’s decently unless you went with small backspacing and wide rims like 9 inchers.

At the end of the day I don’t really recommend slapping on 35’s as a look at all. The 5 questions barely even scratch the surface of what I consider proper to run 35’s. Brakes, steering and gearing are all drastically effected in a bad way when going to 35’s.