2" Coil lift done!

[jair2k4]

So, on Sunday, I got up bright and early and drove down to my dad's house. After cleaning his shop for an hour and a half, I felt it was time to get started!.

Before Shot:



My rear spacers were sourced from a jeep TJ lift kit, I modified them by boring the hole out to 2.5" with a hole saw. No pics for them, sorry. Kinda forgot.
The front spacers I got from a local plastics store. UHMW 4" cut from round-stock:



I bore them out with my hole saw and then finished the insides off with a pocket knife and some sand paper:



I didnt take too many pitures of the actual process, as I was quite dirty and did not want to get dirt and grease all over my iphone... but here is my driver's side rear before:



And after:



You can see the Jeep TJ spacers in there quite clearly. They are made of polyurethane instead of UHMW. You can also see my new shocks in there. Got from autozone fit for a '91 crown vic.

Passenger side rear after:



For the front, I did not have to take EVERYTHING apart like i have been reading about. All I had to do was support the control arm, drop the 3 bolts holding it to the wheel assem. and take off my caliper. I suspended the caliper on a bungee cord hooked to the frame under my hood to keep it out of the way. Dropped the one nut holding the steering control arm in and dropped the jack. A good push with my foot and everything just fell down:





I did the strut flip while i was under there, but didnt get any pics of the process. I did not have to take out the lower bolts holding the strut in, which made it easier to move the entire wheel/hub assem. around to gain access to the various nuts and bolts:



Here is my zuk after i finished the rear. I took a break at this point to catch my breath and clean up a bit:



And the finished product!



The one thing that I learned early on is that you REALLY do need to take off the brackets that hold up your brake lines. You can so easily rip them clear in half if you don't, as all the weight of your wheel/brake assembly is pulling on them.

All in all, due to my inexperience and lack of help (my dad did come in and help some, just because he was afraid i was going to drop the whole damn thing on my upper torso) it took me 8 hours for the whole job. Next time, I will know what i am doing and will be able to shave that time in half... If there is a next time. I'm definitely going to need a professional alignment as my camber is all kinds of screwed up.

2 days later and I am still sore in places of my body i did not even know I had.....

I have been asked by probably 6 people already, "Was 2 inches of higher ride worth all the time and pain?" After driving it around for a day, I have to say..... Yes. It was totally worth it. Especially once I cram some 30's under the little beast!

[jswezy]

nice job. looks good. thats exactly how I did mine... now Im gonna do a body lift.

[Badgerfan3121]

Ya, thats what i had done also, and i put on a 2" body lift, but it only took me like an hour and a half. soon im gettin bigger springs from a new geo tracker, i have a 91' so if i get them from a 2000-2001' it will raise it another 3". but i might have to do somthing with my diff's. and control arms. idk i'll have to see and post some pics.

[Badgerfan3121]

If you do the boddy lift, make sure you do one side at a time. Loosen up all the bolts and take of the front bumpers and lights. Then you can get at the fornt bolts. Then you can get the back from under the car. Also when you do it make sure to lengthen ur power steering hose. At least i needed to. And make sure to watch ur brake lines. Cus when i did it i lifted the whole thing, and the body twisted on me, so it was a b***h to get back into align. Also after you get done make sure to tighten the bolts after a 100 miles or so, and you have to get an alignment. Other wise ur tires will be gone in no time. Good luck and show some pics

[jair2k4]

A question, now that my lift is finished... I know there has been a lot of discussion on this, but i have not seen a definitive answer. How big if a size tires can I go with 2"? I don't mind removing the bumpers. Should I go 30's? or 31's?

[fuzzy1]

Originally Posted by jair2k4

A question, now that my lift is finished... I know there has been a lot of discussion on this, but i have not seen a definitive answer. How big if a size tires can I go with 2"? I don't mind removing the bumpers. Should I go 30's? or 31's?

Hehe, this was my suggestion for the 'sticky' thread post. From what I gather 30's are as big as you can go on 2" lift, & they might rub the inner wheelwells on full articulation. I've also read ppl saying they weren't happy with 31's until they regeared the diffs, so guess it depends how far you're gonna take it & what you're gonna do with it... Daily driver/mild trails? Rockcrawling? Poser Show Truck? Lol, all depends... Check out Zukiworld.com & Zuwharrie.com ... lots of ppl on those sites MAD mod these kicks & run em through unreal stuff. Like this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/zuksofhazzard

Muwahahhahhaaaaa, that looks like fun!!

Fuzz

[MarkB.NV]

I put the 2" spacer lift on my '91 tracker and then mounted up 30x9.5-15 MTRs on 7 inch rims. On full compression the tires would still rub the tires on the rear fenders.

So I also added the 2" body lift -that fixed the rubbing and its been great ever since. If you can do the spring spacer lift, you can do the body lift. Took 5 minutes to sort out the fuel filler hose -just had to reposition it somewhat. Prolly the hardest part was bending the shifters on the 5spd & xfer case so they would not rub on the trans cover plastics. Took about 30 minutes with a small torch. I got mine from lowrangeoffroad.com, and it was an easy fit. From what I've read online, the 3" body lift causes problems with the steering shaft - so I wanted to avoid that.

[jair2k4]

i was hoping to avoid the 2" body lift. Pretty confident that I can do it, but this thing is my daily driver. I was thinking if I could cram some aggressive 30's under it, I would call it good. with a 2" body lift, do you get the feeling that you are about to roll if you took a corner too fast? I really want to convince myself to just go with the 235 wranglers, but that just isnt enough tire for me. 30's are the bare minimum.

[MarkB.NV]

When I did the 2" spacers for the suspension lift - I replaced the shocks and struts as these were both original equipment and badly worn. The little truck rides much nicer with new shocks and struts.

After installing the 2" body lift -the suspension and handling did not change at all. It tracks nicely and does not feel top heavy or skittish at all, virtually no body roll. It snakes through corners much better than it did before -when it had bad shocks but not susp or body lift.

So far, the only issues are the loss of gas mileage and power -due to the taller tires. Mine has the original manual steering, and with the larger tires it could use power steering. I'm still shopping local salvage yards for the parts.

It's great on local streets, or local jeep trails. I've also added rock rails to protect the rocker panels. And I'm still shopping for a rear locker.

[Uglyduc]

Time for front end alingment? I did the 1 1/2 spacer in the front and rear and need to have the front camber adjusted.