Howdy! I've started digging in to a new-to-me 1994 Sidekick JLX that is going to be my backcountry hunting/exploring vehicle here in Northern Arizona. I'm still working on general reliability & roadworthiness, but like a lot of folks I've got some unexpected time on my hands to work on the truck.

When I bought this Sidekick from a close friend, it came with picking privileges on a couple of donor vehicles he's got parked on his property. Among other things, he pointed out the used lift parts in the back of one of those Sidekicks and told me to load them up. I took everything blue I could find, and ended up with parts for what I believe to be a 2" lift kit, including: 1) a pair of Calmini front control arms, 2) a pair of Calmini rear springs, 3) a single strut extender bracket (not sure.... It's a 2-3" long blue steel tube with flanges on either end that look like they match up with the bolt pattern on the top strut mount, and 4) the center bracket to relocate the front differential - the one that mounts between the lower part of the diff housing & the front crossmember.

In addition to longer shocks & struts (which I assume will make the missing extension collar superfluous), the main parts I'm missing are two additional front differential brackets (driver & passenger sides). Calmini has not been responsive, and at this point I don't expect to hear back from them.

Now that I know what I'm looking for, I'm going to look closer at my buddy's parts stash in a couple of weeks, but looking at how close the front differential housing already is to that crossmember, I'm trying to figure out just what those parts are for - do they move the housing down? How necessary is it to relocate the diff with this particular lift? Do I need to fabricate some substitutes?

Thanks for any insight you can offer!

I would say that for a two inch lift, the diff drop is optional, there are quite a few folks out there running two inch spacer lifts with no diff drop.  What the brackets do is "rotate" the front diff downwards, around the nose which stays in the same position.

I would also say that what you have may not be a two inch lift kit, as the two inch kits don't come with the strut spacers that you describe, or a center bracket for the front diff, just the two outer ones, and if I'm correct on that, you're also missing several other bits & pieces - if you go to the Calmini website and look at the suspension systems, you should be able to figure out what you have and what you're missing.

Now - as I recall it - the Calmini two inch kit originally came with four springs, and not just the two rear springs as currently shown, which suggests to me that the lift in front is now being done by building a spacer into the control arm, and if you look closely at the arms in the two inch & three inch kits, you will see that the spring seats are different, so you need to figure out which arms you have, which shouldn't be too difficult, if you need help, take a picture & post it.

The Calmini arms are considered the best part of the kit, so definitely hang on to those, and if they are the newer arms with the built in spacers, fit them with stock springs & struts in front, and the Calmini rear springs in back, put the rest of the pieces on the shelf for now, you will need longer shocks, try Low Range Off Road for these or let me know and I'll see if I can find my notes on the "off the shelf shocks" that people say work with the spacer lifts,

Thanks!

Let me give this photo posting a try... I didn't get it right the first time. Before I knew where to look, I sent photos to Low Range Offroad - they were awesome in their quick, helpful response - they were the ones who guessed these control arms were for the 2" kit, possibly 3"

I also grabbed a pair of 1.5" poly coil spacers.

Those are not the arms from the current two inch kit, so my guess is they are either from the three inch kit, or the old two inch kit so there will be no lift unless you use longer springs or a coil spacer, if you use them along with stock springs and the 1.5" poly spacers, you should be right around two inches of lift in the front.

You would have to try the rear springs you have to see how much lift you get, or just add a pair of two inch poly spacers along with the stock springs, and a longer shock.

Thanks!

Call zukination they will sell you the diff drop brackets if you need.