Prop shaft and front suspension problems

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

ok so here it goes. please bare with me as I am still learning.
I have a 2004 Liberty Limited 4X4 3.7
Last winter we replaced the WHOLE front end suspension along with the rack & pinion. We added a 2.5" lift and 32" Mickey Thompson Deagan tires. This past spring I went to Jeep Invasion and I had a blast. Did so much off roading along with trails and some Jeep courses. My Jeep did great and it was a blast. Well we drove 3.5 hours to go home and on the way home I was getting some massive road noise and I mean it was loud to the point I could no longer hear my radio system. When we got home I realized my jeep never came out of 4hi even tho the lever was in 2WD. I thought I have ruined my t-case, so i removed the prop shaft to disengage the 4WD system and the massive road noise was still there so it couldn’t be the t-case. Went and had my alignment checked and found that the wheel hubs were bad. I took it home and replaced the wheel hubs and the road noise was gone. I thought I might be in the clear. Took it back to have the alignment looked at and found the Upper Ball joints are bad… well we know after this being the 3 set of upper control arms that now we need to get YET another upper control assembly to replace the ball joint. The prop shaft is still off my Jeep and it almost a year now. I was going to install the prop shaft this weekend but a friend of mine who owns a 2002 Liberty told me that because I am having front end suspension problems told me that if i install my prop shaft I could be looking into spending more money on a front end suspension if I do engage the 4WD… I was trying to research this and I can’t find anything.

That’s when I stumbled on this forum.

Please tell me what I could run into if i do install the prop shaft and engage the 4WD? I seem to have a disconnect on how all this works apparently.

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If I read all of your post and understand it right, I see no issue with putting the drive shaft back in and using 4wd. The bad hub bearings and bad ball joints are unrelated to operating in 4wd. The lift along with the larger tires, however, I could see how that could put more stress on the hubs, ball joints, and cv axles. The cv axles are usually at a greater angle after a lift is installed, which puts some strain on them. But they’re replaceable too, and if I had a lifted Jeep, I think I’d want 4wd.

Of course, your friend might know something specific to the Liberty that I don’t. Why don’t you ask him to clarify how using the 4wd can affect the suspension negatively? Personally, I don’t see it. But like I said, a lift and larger tires are hard on an independent front suspension. With or without using the 4wd.

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