Well, for now, I think my lifting is complete. Went with the "little" OME lift a few months ago, and was pretty happy overall. I had purchased the Rocky Road Outfitters upper strut "trim plates" at the time (more on those later) but néver got them installed as I was hemming and hawing the $ for the JBA upper CA's. I decided to tackle the job and get it done as I was having a bit of upper CA clunk and the summer is coming so, why not? Anywho, I must say overall the job was not nearly as bad as I expected. It was a little bit of a hassle to get at the left side rear UCA bolt, but a couple of extensions solved that issue. I am lucky and none of my bolts were seized or mangled in any way. The UCA bushings were shot, but the ball joints were still in remarkably good shape. Overall, took me about 5 hours, but that included some other things I wanted to do to tidy up the engine bay. I did not do anything with the LCA's, lower ball joints are in great shape (I suspect these may have been done not too long ago) no real signs of wear and tear. The strut clevis bushings are tired, but not horrible and I had the parts to swap them, but didn't want to wake that bear. When they die, I'll do the whole LCA.
Some thoughts, tips...
DO THE LEFT SIDE FIRST. Get your head pounding out of the way and the right side seems like cake. Patience is a virtue for this job. It's not hard, but it can leave you using a few sentence enhancers.
Go through and break all of the bolts, UCA, struts etc. (in my case adding the plates), wheels etc with the Jeep on the ground. Makes life easier when the Jeep is elevated.
If you are doing anything with the strut at the same time, pop off the bump stop, it makes it a little easier to get the strut out (especially if you have Terra's).
Nothing special with the upper ball, pretty simple to get separated.
If adding a plate to the strut (as I did) you'll need to separate the stabilizer bar link on the LCA, just on one side, no need to separate the tie rod. The little extra height on the strut requires pushing down on the LCA with your foot to remount the strut clevis on the bushing. I did not need any straps or otherwise, my struts went into place pretty easily.
Products: JBA UCA's are excellent, look cool (they are RED!) and installed without a hitch. Mine required the use of the supplied ball joint spacer YMMV.
Rocky Road Trim Plates (upper strut mount): wow... I think they were machined but a 10 year old. Very poorly drilled, spacing on bolt centers wasn't even close, and required me to significantly oversize the holes to make them work. Very disappointing. Of the entire job, these two stupid plates were probably the biggest PITA. The plates did the job, but shouldn't require so much to make them work. I don't know if there is another option for this mod, but if there is, I couldn't recommend these plates for an easy install. Maybe I got a bad set... who knows?
Overall, I'm happy. The Jeep needs an alignment now, but already feels better. I really like the leveled look and the Jeep feels much more balanced on the road with a bit more weight biased to the rear. Pics to follow...
Some thoughts, tips...
DO THE LEFT SIDE FIRST. Get your head pounding out of the way and the right side seems like cake. Patience is a virtue for this job. It's not hard, but it can leave you using a few sentence enhancers.
Go through and break all of the bolts, UCA, struts etc. (in my case adding the plates), wheels etc with the Jeep on the ground. Makes life easier when the Jeep is elevated.
If you are doing anything with the strut at the same time, pop off the bump stop, it makes it a little easier to get the strut out (especially if you have Terra's).
Nothing special with the upper ball, pretty simple to get separated.
If adding a plate to the strut (as I did) you'll need to separate the stabilizer bar link on the LCA, just on one side, no need to separate the tie rod. The little extra height on the strut requires pushing down on the LCA with your foot to remount the strut clevis on the bushing. I did not need any straps or otherwise, my struts went into place pretty easily.
Products: JBA UCA's are excellent, look cool (they are RED!) and installed without a hitch. Mine required the use of the supplied ball joint spacer YMMV.
Rocky Road Trim Plates (upper strut mount): wow... I think they were machined but a 10 year old. Very poorly drilled, spacing on bolt centers wasn't even close, and required me to significantly oversize the holes to make them work. Very disappointing. Of the entire job, these two stupid plates were probably the biggest PITA. The plates did the job, but shouldn't require so much to make them work. I don't know if there is another option for this mod, but if there is, I couldn't recommend these plates for an easy install. Maybe I got a bad set... who knows?
Overall, I'm happy. The Jeep needs an alignment now, but already feels better. I really like the leveled look and the Jeep feels much more balanced on the road with a bit more weight biased to the rear. Pics to follow...
