Outer Limits 4x4 Board

l have just bought a 5inch lift kit for my gq and lm wondering if it would be easy enough to put it in at home, or is it not worth the hasle.
any tips to make it easier to do would be good.

search if you havent already....should be plenty about it.

some more info about this "5in lift" would be good. got control arms, radius arms???

i did my patrol at home one night....had a couple of mates around to make it a bit easier....but basically do front or rear first.....
remove shocks, disconnect brake lines/breathers if need be......
jack vehicle from diff and put stands under chassis....
remove wheel...
lower jack till old spring falls out....
lower more till new spring goes in (pay attention there are left and right hand sides for the springs).....
jack diff up and ensure spring seats properly...
put wheel back on and remove stands and put vehicle to ride height......
fit shocks.....
remove panhard rod....install new one....
line up the length of panhard rod by getting mates to push on side of car....
remove and replace control arms if necessary (one at a time!!!)



-powerful rattle gun or strong muscles needed for suspension bolts
-most likely jacking between diff and chassis required to get front end to flex down far enough
-front tailshaft may fowl on gearbox crossmember. modification of crossmember may be necessary.

my lift was done with castor plates....which can be hard to setup properly.

wrote that in a couple of mins so i may have missed a few things...but its not a waste of time doing it at home.

PAUL

the driveshaft can actually be rotated to have the thick part at the diff end. this solves most crossmember clearance issues and won't cause any real problems.

do it at home, its easy enough.

get spring clamps if you dont have them already. makes things a little easier

Yom wrote:the driveshaft can actually be rotated to have the thick part at the diff end. this solves most crossmember clearance issues and won't cause any real problems.

Thia is for the rear shaft, the front may require the crossmember to get notched.

With the lift in you will still be able to drive but the front will rub offroad. Not a big deal to do the cross member if you have a grinder a welder and some plate.

Its not hard to do at home, im at home today fitting radial arm spacers and 16mm+ rear lower control arms in prep for the new wheels

I have a 5"+ lift in my GU, most case you can go up to 5" but not beyond without a cross member notch, this is what i had to do when going over 5" with drop boxes in the front:






But basically in the front jack up you car, wheels about 5" off the ground, you take out your shocks, undo the brake line and breather and take off the swaybarand panhard i spose you have drop boxes so undo the radial arm bolts, at this stage you should be able to remove the springs, drop down you gear box one side at a time and put in your drop boxes, not just install your new stuff in reverse




As for the rear, same jack up about 5" and remove tail shaft, swaybar, panhard, and brake lines etc, take out shocks and remove coils, repeat process and when doing the rear shaft flip it so the smalled diameter is at the front, ie closest to transfer case

I would have to notch the girls crossmember with 4" lift if not for the engine n gearbox lift.

my front drive shaft clears by about 1mm. thats with 5" dobinson coils (drive shaft has been reversed)

got all the parts yesterday and started to put them in, when it came to the springs they seem to be about 2inches short when the shock is fully extended on the front and rear.
the shocks in the front are 381 compressed and 625 extended
rear are 492 compressed and 819 extended
does that sound right for a 5inch lift?
roughly what should the spring height be for the 5inch lift?

they are rancho shocks and dobinson springs if that changes anything

i cant comment on the length of your ranchos.....but when i put a 6in lift in my swb i got 8in rear shocks (more travel ) which measured 860 extended...so yours should only be about 790 or their abouts. but i could be wrong

PAUL

Ideally your shocks should be just long enough to let your coild almost lose at full drop, if yours are lose at full drop and they could fall out, they will!

just make some spring retainers

Put up some pics of the ideal spring retainers

on the diff...get some 50x10 flat bar through the spring and bolted to the diff through the hole already in the centre of the spring perch.

at the top, 2 pieces of 50x10 flat bar, one over the top of the spring hat, and the other through the coil similar as the bottom, 2xbolts of approx 75mm to "clamp" the spring between retainers. simple

PAUL