Ryan Jaundrew
1992 YJ
4.0L I6
1.25" shackle lift
2" add-a-leafs
33x12.50 Goodyear MT/R's

Installation:

After buying a new set of tires, Ryan decided it was time for a body and engine mount lift to match.

He brought the Jeep over to my place (jo-jo's Garage), and had mentioned something about it taking 20min to an 1hr. Hmm...sure Rye, whatever you say guy (hee hee, I hate it when people call me guy).

Anyway, after perusing through the instructions...we tossed those aside and got started on installing the body lift. Ryan had already broken some of the bolts prior to coming over, and when I say "broken" I don't mean loosened, I mean broke as in busted, ripped, mangled, destroyed etc. etc.

One thing to keep in mind when working on any vehicle that is more than a few years old is bolts do not like coming out after getting seized with corrosion and rust from time and the elements.

The best way to tackle a body lift from our experience is one side at a time. We started on the passenger side, first getting the broken bolts out. This is a bit of a chore because there are some access issues to deal with. The bolts are held in by quite large square nuts. These nuts sit in a steel covering that is just big enough for the nut to fit in, thus preventing the nut from spinning while removing the bolt. At least that's the way it's supposed to work, but things are never that simple.

What we found was that not only were the bolts seized in the nuts, but the steel cover for the nuts were rusted, and weren't that strong to begin with. What happens is the force you must apply to try to remove the bolts just bends and deforms the steel cover allowing the nut to spin inside it. So if you don't break a bolt, you are likely to spin a nut (Ouch...that sounds like it hurts). I think we had to deal with about a half dozen of these, one or the other.

As you can see in the photos, we had to cut holes in the floor to access the bolts under the front of the seats. We had to do this on both sides. The first attempt made a bit of a mess of the floor because we weren't sure what we were dealing with. I used a hole saw on a drill to cut the first one, and after realizing the size of the nuts and discovering the steel covers, I needed to break out the angle grinder with a cutting blade on it to make the access hole larger.

When we got to the driver's side I made a cleaner cut. Three cuts were made, and the steel was pulled back to access the nut/bolt combo. I also had to cut the steel cover off to get complete access to the nut. If the cut is made clean like this it would be easy enough to Mig weld back together, but Ryan just covered the holes with his carpeting. Some of the other bolts were a little easier to access. I think these were the hardest.

In the rear it became necessary to make a couple steel plates with nuts welded to them to anchor the new bolts. This wasn't much of a problem and seemed to be the best solution to the problem at the time. The driver's side one along the front of the tub (not the grill) were punched out with a hammer, which punched the bolt right through the steel cover. We replaced this with a new nut and large washer.

A High-Lift jack with a piece of wood on it was used to lift the body. Using a floor jack and pieces of wood worked well to press stubborn bolts into the body. We found that even though this Jeep wasn't that old, the rubber body mounts were pretty pooched. I would suggest either buying a Daystar 1" rubber mount kit as opposed to the M.O.R.E kit or replacing all the stock mounts when you install a body lift.

In the front we made a set of small spacers for the bracket that is just in front of the grill and has the brake lines attached to it. Longer bolts and the spacers will make this fit better. The instructions said some crap about drilling some other crap somewhere, but I have no patients for instructions so we just made it up as we went.

The body lift would take 20min to an hour or so if the vehicle was brand new and all the bolts came out easily, but instead it took probably closer to 10 or 12 hours. Keeping in mind that I have major brain farts, smoke breaks and just a general slack-ass approach to working on vehicles. Maybe you could do it quicker, but be prepared to spend a day on it at least. We also installed a set of 1" lift engine mounts to top things off.

The engine mounts went in pretty smoothly. It can take a little time to line things up right as the engine tends to shift around when you release it from it's mounts, and is difficult to get back into position. This is were scissor and hydraulic bottle jacks come in handy.

Conclusion:

Ryan Jaundrew's comments: "...it was a BITCH"!

jo-jo's comments: Not that I'm recommending anything here, but here is what I would do...

Either find some scrap aluminum or steel and make my mounts out of that or use hockey pucks, boat rollers or something similar. As far as the engine mounts go...longer bolts and some spacers. Yes, I am a cheap bastard!

There's nothing wrong with the quality of the products that were used, but I just couldn't fork over that kind of cash for something I can make myself. The body lift is dead simple, and I'm going to be making one for my Samurai soon. I found some old driveshaft that I'm going to be cutting up for that one. The engine mounts were certainly beefy, but still...I'm used to the mounts used on old CJs that rip apart at the slightest sign of a wind storm coming. These YJ mounts look to be a much better design that holds the engine in place even if the rubber fails.

Pictures and write-up by jo-jo

Truck and products bought and paid for by Ryan Jaundrew

Installation done at jo-jo's Garage

Installed by jo-jo and Ryan with a little help from the elusive Redape...

Special thanks to Beer for showing up in his Sunday bests, and getting us all hot and bothered... :P

Update (May 16th)

...since the bodylift install I decided I was gonna put my front frame cover back on...I was gonna have to either mount it with a buldge in the middle or on an angle and drill new holes due to the raised center body mount.

Well...I got a little tip for those YJ guys who like to retain the stock look of the vehicle (take it easy on me 4x guru's...need the jeep to help pick up the ladies! )...

I was pissed the the frame cover was gonna look ugly either way I mounted it...so I cleaned up the hard brake line holder and painted it with a few coats of gloss black krylon...

Then...a jeep guy (Dan McKeag...big yellow TJ on the front cover of last issue of Jp mag) was kind enough to contribute a TJ front frame cover to "Ryan's jeep coolness fund" after we schemed, conversated for a bit, and took some measurements and decided it could fit. He just sent it to me from Minnesota...no questions asked!

Anyways...here's what it looks like now...

It fits nicely due to the shape of it (curved to accomodate a front sway bar on a TJ). It's not perfect but it's better than the old one and with out one.

I still hafta drill new holes...it's just sitting on there in the pic.

Thanks to jo-jo for basically doing the whole project, and Keith for hanging around and keeping us entertained.

RJ