Bigwalton's LJ - Formerly "The LJ gets some big tire love"

[bigwalton]

Started the install.

To get the new coils in, I had to unbolt the lower control arms at the frame, this is me using a ratchet strap (required tool for this project!) to realign the arm to rebolt it.

Ratchet strap required again for getting the trackbar installed. Can see the PSC steering box skidder:

Everything installed on the front, swaybars are straightforward, the large pins that lock in the big nut on the swaybar discos needs to go in from the middle of the Jeep, could contact the tire on full lock otherwise, noticed this later when testing clearances.

Front sitting right after the install:

Measurement at back of front flare (no driving or anything yet), looks more like 2.5" over the earlier shot, but the rear's not lifted here either I suppose:

 

[bigwalton]

Got to mention that Orionn/Mark from the forum here volunteered to wrench and came over for day 2. He was a major help He worked one side while I did the other and basically made most stuff take half the time it would have with me alone (and was the only reason we got through one thing, see below), it was GREAT! Plus we talked Jeep pretty much the whole time and got to know one another.

Moved to the rear and started uninstalling things per the (pseudo) instructions. Everything was fine until we got to the instructions on how to install the cam bolts on the rear of the upper control arms.

So the deal is this, for the stock setup, the holes in the bracket are just squares large enough for the bolt. No adjustment possible. But what they do is stamp the sides of the bracket to "perforate" two tabs on either side of the hole that, if removed, would make it into a horizontal slot. The cam bolt requires that these tabs get "punched out" according to the instructions. Simple enough, right????

The problem is that there's NO WAY for one person to do much of anything to try to remove them because of all the bracketry, the driveshaft, the exhaust, the gas tank, the ebrake cables, the hard brake line on the axle, the pumpkin, the yoke, etc. etc. etc. So at this point I'm thanking the Jeep gods for sending Mark over and we start to strategize on how to get this done.

In the end, no one thing worked very well at all. We tried an air chisel and about four different cold chisel/punches. I don't think we used less than two implements on any of the tabs and a couple of them had us trying 6-8 things. It was dodgy for a while as one of the two of us was holding the implement and the other was attempting to hit it with the 3 lb. sledge without hitting all of the things mentioned above or the other guy's hand. I think I got Mark good a couple times, but he played it off like nothing. I did manage to make myself bleed by hitting myself with the sledge, so at that point I officially owned the lift kit

Here's a pic of one side of one bracket that has one tab out and one in the process of getting beat to hell with our various metal weaponry. Might be hard to tell, but you can also see how far we bent the brackets in the process of beating them seneless. We should have put pieces of 2x4 in the middle of the brackets first, but we didn't think about it/notice until we were to the last tab and went to take this picture. We were so focused on the BEATDOWN!

Here's the finished setup:

Mark laughed at me (jokingly) for being anal when I took a file to the edges of the slots and then hit them with paint. I figured all that effort was for crap if the bolts ended up unable to slide in the slot.

So in the end, these were a MASSIVE PITA. I forget how long it took, but I'm positive this was the single longest step in the whole install by AT LEAST a factor of 5 or so. Oh, it was made worse by the fact that the tabs were much less "perforated" on one backet than the other...

For your enjoyment, Mark had a great idea and we took great pleasure in taking this picture of 7 of the 8 tabs (one is lost forever in the garage when it went flying out) on top of the instruction telling you to remove them. You can see how incredibly fukced up they got before they'd come loose.

All of that to get these things installed.... This was the starting position from the instructions. But with what I now know and mentioned above, on the LJ, without the tcase drop and motor mount lift, you should install these at this point with the long part of the "lobe" all the way to the rear of the Jeep, so basically 90° to the right from this view. That will minimize the angle on the driveshaft as much as you can and will save you the second biggest PITA in this whole install: adjusting these things with everything else installed, which I'll get to later.

 

[cchambers]

YOU KNOW ITS NOT A JEEP BUILD TILL YA DRAW BLOOD.

MAN IM GLAD ALL I DID WAS SAND ON SOME BODY PARTS THIS WEEKEND.
TOOK SOME AXLES AND A 360 TOO.

 

[bigwalton]

The next disappointment with this kit was the trackbar relocation bracket. In retrospect, I should have thought to try the adjustable trackbar in the stock location to see if it would work at all since I had it. It was simply too long to work at all with the relocation bracket in place.

I screwed up and forgot to take a picture of the fit of the bracket as it came. Basically it angles back toward the axle tube at the bottom to mate to the bottom of the stock bracket and that angle wasn't even close to matching up. Oh, there was no hardware supplied to attach this thing BTW, we had to go through my bolt supply and found what we needed. Another reason to call BD.

The angle I'm talking about can be seen here, I'm drilling out a stock hole on the angled part to use as a through hole for mounting the bracket. (nice thing about a second guy is that you end up getting pictures of actually doing work)

Here's the bracket as modified by Mark via vice and BFH while I was drilling out the stock bracket. The angle in question is at the bottom, that piece was straight at the angle closest to the rest of the bracket. Mark bent in the end. We also had to cut the end of that angled part off because it was hitting the stock bracket and keeping it from seating.

So that was bad enough, but two of the holes in the new bracket didn't line up with the holes in the stock bracket that I was drilling out in the earlier picture, so I bolted the bracket on with the one hole that worked and used the new bracket as a jig to drill the holes properly.

Action shot putting the bolts in after all the drilling

One bolt is in a very small nook in the stock bracket, I was pissed off at the whole thing at that point and Mark took over to get the nut on it:

What we learned here was REMOVE THE UPPER CONTROL ARM AXLE BRACKET BOLTS THEN DO THE TRACKBAR BRACKET BEFORE INSTALLING THE CAM BOLTS If we'd done it at that point, the upper control arm would have been uninstalled and you could have easy access through the bracket to get to this nut.

Finally installed, you can see the small hole to access the nut for the front bolt and how the end of the control arm fills up the other side of the bracket.

And from the back, you can see the extra bend Mark made:

 

[bigwalton]

Everything else went in fine, not that there was much left after that. We reused the stock trackbar, put in the coils, shocks and longer swaybar links.

Here's how it sat in the garage afterward

Mark and I took it out for a shakedown (literally) on some dirt backroads out here on the way to picking up pizza (to kiss up to Laura/Kate after being in the garage for 20 of the last 48 hours) and nothing fell off or made horrible sounds. There weren't any driveshaft vibes over any speed range accelerating or decelerating. There was a little shimmy in the steering wheel, but I hoped the toe in being well off was to blame (it was). Otherwise, it rode pretty dang well. Not much harsher than stock, maybe a little stiffer, a tiny bit more body roll, but nothing at all worrisome.

I knew I still needed to do toe in, center the steering wheel, and adjust the length on the front trackbar, but it wasn't a long ride and we stayed on dirt mostly. The pizza was a perfect way to end the day and a small measure of thanks to Mark for all his help.

I redid the same shots as the befores today for comparison:

This morning I took Kate and Laura for a short ride (still needed to do the final stuff mentioned above) to get coffee/smoothie to check out the new setup. I drove us over through the empty neighborhood next to ours to flex a bit and shake things out before the toe in/trackbar/retorquing.

Had to do a beauty shot:

And Laura thinks the "silver Jeep" is pretty cool now too:

 

[bigwalton]

So to finish things up today, I had to take care of those final things I'd left undone.

One thing that I was confused on from the "instructions" doing the front install was the install location of the strap dealios that they provided for holding the swaybar up when the dicsos are discoed. They said to use an existing empty hole that looked from the illustration to be on the inside face of the fender. There were none.

So I spent some time playing with them and trying to figure out what would work. I ended up pulling out a wire tie that's pressed into a hole on the fender support and using that. I put a cable clamp on the bolt to replace the tie. Seems like it will work fine though I wished it would have worked on the fender face. The only place that seemed right on the face would have prevented me from getting to the back to put the nut on without removing the headlight and bucket. I wasn't that motivated and this seems ok.

I didn't take pics of it, but I used the plumb bob/axle line to measure how far off I was with the front trackbar and pulled it to make the adjustment, using the jack/ratchetstrap method to both get the tension off the bar so the heim joint bolt came out easily and to shift the axle over to reinstall the shorter bar.

This was the result, spot on:

A little garage flex from when I was removing the jackstands, definite improvement and easy to notice how much more effort it took to get it back off the stands.

Kate and Laura came out to help me measure for the toe-in adjustment. Here's Laura testing out the creeper for me:

So got the toe in squared away (1/16" narrower at the front of the tire as compared to the rear of the tire). And straightened out the wheel. Good instructions here:
http://www.quadratec.com/jeep_knowledgebase/article-48.htm

Took it for another drive and the slight squirrliness and shimmy was gone. It was solid as a rock

Cleaned up the garage and tucked away the LJ next to Kate's JK. I feel much better now that the LJ is finally the taller one.

CAN NOT WAIT for the new meats to show up.

Unfortunately they won't be in until Tues and I'll be out of town until Friday, so it has to wait until next weekend. It's going to be a looooong week.

 

[cchambers]

WITH ALL KIDDING A SIDE THIS WAS ONE OF THE BEST THREADS ON THIS CITE.
THE JEEP LOOKS GREAT. BD BETTER ASK FOR THE PICTURES YOU TOOK
JUST TO PUT IN THE INSTRUCTIONS.
HAVE FUN WITH THE NEW TOY

 

[bigwalton]

Thanks, but I'll take any of crash's threads over any of mine anytime!

I actually plan to be proacive and constructive with BD on the phone. If I had the file for their instructions, I could edit it to correct all the issues I found with no trouble. It's the kind of thing I do for my clients at the day job all the time.

While all of the issues were unacceptable, I want to try to help as much as I want them to know that they screwed up a number of things with this order. Should be interesting and I'll certainly report back on what comes of it all.

 

[cchambers]

YA STAY CALM COOL AND COLECTED. STATE THE FACTS AND IF THEY HAVE ANY CUSTOMER SERVICE AT ALL IT SHOULD BE MADE RIGHT TO YOU.

CAN I GO TO BED NOW ARE ALL THE PIC POSTED?
GREAT BUILD!!!!!!!!!!

 

[bigwalton]

Heh, yeah, that's all I have until the wheel spacers go on and the new tires come in.

 

[Orionn]

Eric;
Your writeup makes it all look/sound alot harder than it was. I'd classify it about about a 6.5 on a scale from 1 to 10, and only becouse of the slug removal.

Thanks for the compliments, but really, I dont think I did a whole lot but provide a bit of moral support and a second pair of hands.

Looking back over the years, that really was not the worst of the lift installs I have done, about in the middle of the pack i'd say....Now if everything was rusted badly, then it would have been a different story for sure.

You made the front look easy by the pics, and I'm glad that the toe-in cleared up the front end isuues.

Those slugs that we removed, I have to agree that was the worst part, follwed closely by the so call 'Cam Adjusters' for the pinion angle, those are kind of a joke the way its set up.
That area could definatly be improved.

the track-bar braket was frustrating, and remember you had to cut 3/8" off the length of that bottom flange to make it fit without hitting the axle tube/weld.

I was just poking fun at ya when you were painting the axle brackets, what you didn't tell them was you filed the edges down as well befor the paint. But truthfully, you did it the right way, and I would have done the same as well on my own Jeep.

Supprisingly, there were only a few light injuries, which I attribute to the lack of rustted bolts
which I am sure your family is gratefull for.

All in all I had a great time meeting you, the Family and Dogs and being able to help out a fellow Jeeper. Dont be afraid to ask for assistance again if you need it, I'll be glad to come out and lend a hand.
(when are we going to rebuild that D300 for your Postal?)

BTW....who is this 'Mike' guy I was reading about.....

 

[Orionn]

Just a heads up....Dont be supprised if the tire shop wont put the wheel spacers on when you get the new tires. Alot has changed in recent years and most shops wont install tires on a car with spacers, or install spacers for liability reasons.

I hope they dont give you any hasslels with them.

I must say, it looks good with the lift....and with the new tires you will definatly have that 'Stompers' look

I cant wait to see it with the new meats.

 

[ilovetrains]

the local costco refuses to install any tire on a wheel that is not the OEM wheel, while on the car. If you bring them the wheels, they will install the tires, just not bolt them up to the car. Another reason I use a local trusted shop for that stuff.

 

[bigwalton]

Eric;
Your writeup makes it all look/sound alot harder than it was. I'd classify it about about a 6.5 on a scale from 1 to 10, and only becouse of the slug removal.

Thanks for the compliments, but really, I dont think I did a whole lot but provide a bit of moral support and a second pair of hands.

Looking back over the years, that really was not the worst of the lift installs I have done, about in the middle of the pack i'd say....Now if everything was rusted badly, then it would have been a different story for sure.

You made the front look easy by the pics, and I'm glad that the toe-in cleared up the front end isuues.

Those slugs that we removed, I have to agree that was the worst part, follwed closely by the so call 'Cam Adjusters' for the pinion angle, those are kind of a joke the way its set up.
That area could definatly be improved.

the track-bar braket was frustrating, and remember you had to cut 3/8" off the length of that bottom flange to make it fit without hitting the axle tube/weld.

I was just poking fun at ya when you were painting the axle brackets, what you didn't tell them was you filed the edges down as well befor the paint. But truthfully, you did it the right way, and I would have done the same as well on my own Jeep.

Supprisingly, there were only a few light injuries, which I attribute to the lack of rustted bolts
which I am sure your family is gratefull for.

All in all I had a great time meeting you, the Family and Dogs and being able to help out a fellow Jeeper. Dont be afraid to ask for assistance again if you need it, I'll be glad to come out and lend a hand.
(when are we going to rebuild that D300 for your Postal?)

BTW....who is this 'Mike' guy I was reading about.....

I thought that the fact that it got done in a weekend made it evident it wasn't THAT hard. But you know those tabs weren't coming out without two people willing to swing small sledges at each other

It was late, Marks throughout now.

I'm going to put the wheel spacers on before going over. It's the stock rims and I'm not asking them to do the spacers. Guess I'll call them.

 

[bigwalton]

Well, another delay, the tires this time.

When I called to price the tires at the Goodyear place in Ann Arbor, they were willing to match the low price I'd found. They said the warehouse is nearby and all I'd need to do was give them one day's notice to have the tires in and ready to install.

Well, I had the delay getting the lift and that actually worked out because Goodyear is now having a sale that saved me $25 a tire over matching the low price. BUT, he said he had 3 of what I wanted and it was going to be 4-5 days to get two more. That meant that I was going to be out of town when they were supposed to come in (Tues). So I called as soon as I got back into town (3 days after they were supposed to be in) on Fri.

The guy tells me that they came in, but were "blemished" and had the letters on the side screwed up to the point he wouldn't sell them. If it was on the white letter side and just cosmetic, I would have taken a discount anyway because they'd be inside regardless. So he said he was expecting the replacements by the end of the day or today and he'd call.

I called early this afternoon and they didn't come in and they wouldn't get them until at least Monday

Between the Bestop Supertop and doors, the problems with the Black Diamond lift and these tires.... I'm not having a lot of luck with Jeep purchases! Jeeeeez.

Oh, they're fine with the wheel spacers as long as I have them on and I'm not asking them to install them.

 

[Randyzzz]

Hate to say it, Eric...but that's code for "A cash customer wanted them and you weren't here, so we sold them."

 

[jeffs396]

Can't wait to see it with the bigger meats on it!

 

[bigwalton]

Randy, I assumed as much, either that or "Oops, we forgot to order them.... again"

I was half interested in going over there and asking to see the three

 

[ilovetrains]

Randy, I assumed as much, either that or "Oops, we forgot to order them.... again"

I was half interested in going over there and asking to see the three

especially since you would just as soon have the blems..did they send them back?

 

[bigwalton]

especially since you would just as soon have the blems..did they send them back?

That's what he said. I wasn't going to argue with the guy that ultimately needs to get my tires in and installed.

If they're not in tomorrow, I'm calling around with their sale price to see if anyone else will match it and actually get them in or have them in stock.

I never called Black Diamond either, didn't have time last Monday before I left town for the week...