| The first thing I tackled was the crossmember. I had to design one that would be stong enough to mount the arms on.
The first consideration is whether to bolt or weld the crossmember on. I decided to bolt the crossmember on because I felt that was the easiest and strongest option, a welder with experience welding on a thin framerail like the XJs could make welding a crossmember on a better option but I didn't want to risk it.
I wanted to replace the factory crossmember because I had dented it up and it's location would work well for the arms and support the transmission/transfercase.
I also wanted to tuck the arm mounts up above the crossmember. There's no point in going to the trouble of doing this if you're just going to leave the arm mounts hanging down and catching on things.
Another consideration was removal of the trans or transfer case if needed. This made me decide to make the center of the crossmember removeable. Even though the whole thing is just bolted on it's much easier to remove the center when needed. I've done it once and it was a pice of cake.
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