Time to stretch

[miguelitojeep97]

Everyone seems to be building there junk these days, so... I had to join the club.

So happy graduation/birthday to me:

After much time of saving $ and researching exactly what I wanted to do with my daily driver TJ, I finally came to the conclusion of a 5 inch rear stretch/long arm upgrade. Most of you know there are many different ways to go about this. Still going to college, my budget and lack of resources really held me back.

So here is the list of build items:

-Rock Krawlers *new TJ 5 inch rear stretch long arm upgrade (3 link front, 4 link rear)
-3.5 inch coils
-new front trac bar, and weld on bracket
-weld on rear truss
-cross member/belly pan
-rear sway bar, front disconnects
-brake lines (no e-brake cables)
-Fox 2.0 12inch remote reservoir shocks for the rear, 45/70
-Genright crawler tank 14.5 gallons, used
-Genright rear shock tower bracket
-Genright aluminum stretch corner guards, used
-Genright stretch rocker guards, used
-Ballistic fab lower control arm brackets, 1/4 inch material
-Billybob13's limit straps for the rear
-Lengthened rear driveshaft
-re-worked exhaust by Dave Chappelle's exhaust

All this is to be done in 3 days.

Before:
stock wheelbase, RE4.5 inch short arm lift on 35s


After:

[miguelitojeep97]

Before I made it to Billy's to get started on the suspension, we had already installed the Genright tank. This only took about 2 hours, very straight forward.

Next thing we did was removed the stock, beat to hell, belly pan and bolt up the new cross member. You can use the stock bolts to hold it in while you finish mounting. You can either use the supplied hardware and bolt the side brackets of the cross-member through the frame, or weld it on. we opted to weld anything we could for durability.




once that was done, we started cutting off all stock suspension bracketry that would be in the way of the new long arms. This was a pain in the ass, to say the least.

[miguelitojeep97]

We opted to start with the rear since that would require the most work. Once all the suspension brackets were removed and the frame was cleaned up, it was time to put the control arms in and see where the axle would be sitting.






tacked the truss in place and started to measure where the bump stops and shock tower would go

[miguelitojeep97]

chopped the spring mounts for extra clearance


measured for the shock tower and cut the frame:

[miguelitojeep97]

simple new sway bar discos:


front upper control arm bushing:


rear truss:



pulled front axle for new lower control arm brackets:


Billy working his ass of while I play photographer:

[miguelitojeep97]

pile o' crap, aka beat to shit Rubicon Express short arm kit:


new rear genright stretch aluminum corner guards:


used and beat up a little bit:

[miguelitojeep97]

odd gap in btw stretch corners and Shrockwork rockers guards


fixed by using genright stretch rockers

[miguelitojeep97]

Misc pictures of the new goodies:




tons of travel:



exhaust getting worked on at Dave Chappelle's shop. Thanks again Dave!

[miguelitojeep97]

Last but not least, I had to test it out. Only had about 30 minutes of trail time before my big trip up North

destination... heaven:




No Soup for me!



The Jeep drove amazing. I honestly couldn't have asked for anything else. I felt very comfortable behind the seat. The jeep is much more stable and barely ever lifted a tire. Suspension flexed very very very well. Even with all my gear in the back, the rear end did not bottom out. The fox shocks work very well. So many things were changed in the suspension I can't really point out the specific differences in the way it drives now. The shocks are out-boarded, and I had to get 1.25 wheel spacers so the tires dont hit the shocks. I think this aids to the great stability the jeep has now.

[miguelitojeep97]

Although my jeep did handle the trail amazing, I think I gained the courage to do more than my little dana 30 could handle:

broke passenger inner at the splines. This required the front axle to be completely taken apart.

our #1 concern was not spilling ANY fluids on the trail. We had plenty of rags/trash bags and clean up kits.







first time I have had to pull both axles and carrier to get the broken piece of the axle out. Props to my $200 Aussie locker for holding up. That thing is still going strong and its on its 6th year...

[miguelitojeep97]

The new suspension was even put to work when Merlin at Spider Lake needed some help removing some small trees near his dam:

[curtis]

Real nice mod and great report. Also nice helping Merlin out.

[miguelitojeep97]

I still need to get my Jeep out to JV to really test everything out. My overall thoughts about this suspension are good. Its a solid kit that really took my jeep to the level I needed it to be at. The kit is overall fairly simple to install if you have the tools to do it with. We decided to weld anything we could to ensure strength. At the level we are at now, bolt on parts just don't cut it anymore.

My suspension does not bind up at all. With the short arm kit, I would always be lifting tires and binding up the front end. Not anymore, this suspension cycles very well and keeps my tires on the ground. I definitely notice the 5 inch stretch. Sure its not much, but for a daily driver Jeep its perfect! Sure I would like to go 7-10 inches back, but to make that work, I would need larger tires to make up for the belly clearance, plus a fuel cell. The genright tank worked out great! RockKrawler had told me they were working on this kit to work with the crawler tank. I believe I could have gotten an inch or two more out of the back, but thats it. Overall wheelbase is about 99inches. I can crawl ledges much better now and not worry about getting tippy. When were did the new lower control arms in the rear, we moved them up as much as possible without compromising the suspension geometry. Also when out boarding the rear shocks, we moved the lower shock mount up and out of the way of rocks. This was great! I really notice the clearance, and don't need to worry about ripping a lower shock mount of again.

Issues: I did have an issue with hardware. The kit wanted you to re-use some factory hardware. I would have just liked to replace it all, but thats a personal opinion. The control arm bolts are NOT grade 8 hardware which is a bummer also. I paid a lot of money for this kit and I believe they should supply their kits with grade 8, at least all the control arms and trac bar bolts. They will be replaced very soon.
-This stretch kit also screws with your brake lines. RK does give you an extension line for the rear drums and front brake lines, but does not help you out with the e-brake. I did some research and found that a 91 YJ passenger side cable will work for my model Jeep, but have yet to purchase them.
-I also wanted my jeep to sit low which is why I purchased 3.5 inch coils. These were the same size coils I perviously had and were perfect. For the rear, you really cannot go any smaller in size, or the lower control arms will bottom out on the frame. This was kind of a bummer, but works fine.
- I also really really dont like the bump stops that come with the kit. The rubber stopper is very thin and makes for a really harsh bump stop. Would rather use factory bump stop.

Overall great product!

[MY4D9WILLYS]

Hey Mike,
Awesome job. That thing looks like it really rocks!. Great job showing the progression of your project!

[jimmyrig]

Mike, AWESOME glad to see you finally get all that work done. Your poor little TJ has been beat on and driven more then most Jeeps will see in a lifetime. Cant wait to see what you do next.