Jeep Cherokee XJ 3" Suspension Lift Install | Part 1 of 2 | Rough Country

hey guys welcome to the out jeeping youtube channel my name is austin and today we're going to be starting a lift series on this 99 jeep cherokee now this jeep cherokee is going to receive a three inch suspension lift kit by rough country and if you guys saw in the last video i got a little head start and got the front track bar installed so we don't have to worry about doing that today but today it's gonna be part one we're gonna knock out the rear suspension get that all squared away in the next video you'll see how we do the front suspension so let's get started and see what we got to work with [Music] all right so here's the lift kit that we're going to be installing today first off i would like to thank rough country for sending this out and making this possible um but with this lift kit it is a three inch lift kit for the cherokee as you know they have a front coil spring suspension up front and then they got leaf sprung in the back instead of going with the add a leaf option i went with the full leaf packs that way i don't have to worry about my old spring still being saggy so with all the components in our kit obviously we have our leaf springs we got our coil springs and then we got fixed lower control arms up front this is going to help correct our caster angle when we left the jeep three inches we also got sway bar drop brackets right here so that's going to correct the angle for our sway bar and over here we have four sets of u-bolts obviously we're gonna be using uh one for either side where the leaf springs go since these jeep cherokees came with a variety of axles they have a three-inch u-bolt and then they got two and three quarter u-bolts so if you have a chrysler eight and a quarter rear end like i am we're gonna be using these three inch u-bolts and if you either have the dana 44 or dana 35 going to be using these two and three-quarter fuel bolts over here then along with that we got nuts and washers now as far as shocks rough country actually set me two different kinds so we're going to be first installing these m3 series shocks which is their new nitrogen charged shocks and in the past i've actually had a rough country lift that had the n2 shocks and i really didn't have any good luck with that um a lot of times the seals kept leaking and they just kept blowing out just from daily driving and i didn't offer out a whole lot but they say all the problems with the n2s has been resolved in these m3s so we're going to try these out first i'm going to put some hard miles on the road and do a little off-roading too and see how these hold up and see how they ride that's going to be in a later video i'm going to do a review on these and once we tested out these shocks we're going to be replacing them with the rough country v2 model tube shocks which are really high quality in my opinion it is a 400 option if you decide to get it with your lift kit but we're going to be testing those as well see how they do on road and how they do off-road and then we'll compare the two in a later video so a few other things that i got that i'm going to replace while i'm in here doing the suspension lift kit one is i got new upper coil seats for the front since this jeep has 300 000 miles they're probably all worn out along with that i got some sway bar bushings i did replace these a couple years ago actually on this vehicle but they seem like they got some wiggle room in there i also got some extended bump stops that we're going to be installing in the front i got a video for replacing the rear bump stops that i'll post in the description below if you want to know how to do that we're also going to be replacing the rear shackles at the rear leaf springs attach to these ones right here skp and they're the cheapest ones i could find and actually got them off of rock auto for about 30 bucks and they came with two bolts per shackle and then they also came with the replacement leaf spring bushings so if these bushings and the leaf springs go bad i can always replace it with this one and also rough country also sent me flag nuts for the rear shocks um as you guys know the upper bolts for the rear shocks like to snap off you can pound out that welded nut and replace it with these flag nuts right here and it makes it a lot easier hopefully i don't have to use these today but as you guys saw in my rear shock replacement video um i actually got lucky with the bolts actually coming out and i put some anti-seize on those bolts so hopefully they come out nicely today so with part one through this lift series we're going to start on removing the old rear suspension and then replace it with the new stuff right here all right so to start off on the rear suspension we're going to raise this jeep up in the air we have a hoist right here which is going to make things a lot easier it's not necessary to have a voice do a lift but it definitely helps unfortunately i don't have really large jack stands to uh support the axle once this thing is up in the air so a lot of this stuff is actually going to be lower to the ground so that way my jack stands could actually reach the axle when we disconnect it from the springs but to start off we're going to raise it up so we can remove the wheels and then we can also take some other components like the shock top uh [Music] all right so to start off on this rear suspension we're going to be starting off by removing the shocks i'm going to start over here on the lower axle side so this nut over here is going to be an 18 millimeter i'm going to take it off by hand instead of an impact so that way i can feel if it's going to break um i'll be able to feel that bolt if it's going to yield or not i did put some anti-seize on this when i replaced these shocks about half a year ago so hopefully they come out nice oh yeah so it is still kind of tight down here it's kind of hard to pry it off uh probably because the suspension is kind of maxed out at the shocks and the weight of the axle springs is on this joint right here so i'm just going to go do the bolts up ahead on the upper side of the shock and that way if this thing should just drop out so now for these upper bolts are going to be in half inch since i replaced these if you still have the original bolts they're going to be a 13 millimeter so if you guys recall from my video on replacing rear shocks on a cherokee um this driver shock over here one of the bolts actually snapped and i just came down with a bolt from the upper side and then put a nut on the bottom side and i just had to fish a wrench in on the upper side to hold that in place so i got one of those bolts going on and then i just have a normal bolt going straight up into that welted nut so that one should come out nicely all right so since i got that broken free i'm just going to zip them the rest of the way out with the impact all right now i should be able to wiggle this out then we got our shock removed i'm going to put the hardware back in place so i don't lose it now i can repeat the process for the other shock on the rear all right so the next step in the process is actually to unbolt the leaf springs from the axle with those old u-bolts that are on the jeep but before i do that since i have to lower this to the ground and put the axle underneath jack stand so that way it's still held up um i'm going to go and see if i can break these bolts free on the leaf springs now i had these leaf springs actually replaced before and these leaf springs are actually pieced together and they don't say currently since they've been rebuilt but basically um i had brand new leaf packs on my silver jeep back in the day just stocked leaf packs from dorman and this jeep the original main leaf actually had a cracked eyelet on the rear so if you lifted up the vehicle the leaf spring was actually detached from the shackle back here on the passenger right side so i got the main leaf from that and the other leaf actually went to another friend's build um because he was added leaves and his uh current leafs were all kind of flattened out so there is a new main leaf and then i used the rest of the other leafs that were on this and they actually doubled up on one of the medium sized leaves so that way it doesn't sag it rides a little bit stiffer but i think it actually gave about a half inch of height so it looked good by not sagging i also just made some homemade straps too out of some exhaust hanger and those have worked well over the years i had this setup on here for about three years so i've actually had these bolts removed and i believe i greased or anti-seize them so hopefully they should come out a lot easier now when we remove these leaf springs since we got replacement shackles we're actually going to be taking the leaf spring and shackle out as one so that way we can avoid this bolt right here and then all we have to do is remove the bolts that's up here on the upper side of the shackle and the front of the leaf spring now with the factory bolts they're going to be a bolt head of a 21 millimeter so i'm going to get the breaker bar and see if we can get these guys broken free look at that that broke pretty nicely one of the unfortunate things about these upper shackle bolts is that you can't get an impact on them because you got the rear lower quarter panels over here but over on the front leaf springs we can actually get an impact on those to help get them off i'm going to go around to the other three bolts that we're removing for the leaf springs and break them free as well this bolt has actually been replaced before because i think we had to cut out the original one so that is actually not a 21 millimeter this one is actually 7 8. beautiful this is going to make things a lot smoother because this is the biggest thing in the rear suspension is trying to get these bolts off especially if you're in the rust belt they like to come unthreaded from the weld the nut in the frame unfortunately they like to seize up in that metal sleeve in the eyelet of the bushing on these leaf springs so to see that break free it's really a relief nice [Applause] and actually this one is a lot tougher i don't think i touched this bolt before because um i think i replaced one of the uh shackles with another used one back then because it's so rusted out and this one was fine so this one might be the toughest bolt of all it's moving but i haven't heard it pop free so hopefully nothing breaks [Applause] i got my jack handle cheater bar so it definitely made it a lot easier a lot of you guys are probably thinking why i'm not using heat or penetrating oil um but the thing is with these jeep cherokees they got that welded nut that's located inside the frame so even if you squirt out here it's really not going to do much um to get into that threaded portion of the bolt unless you find an axis hole inside the frame which i think you can do in the front you just got to know where you're heating up and where you're shooting that fluid and make sure it's on the threads all right so with those leaf spring bolts broken free we're going to lower the vehicle down so that way the axle is resting on some jack stands we just want to put a little bit of pressure on there so that way when we undo the leaf spring from the axle with the u-bolts that way our axle just doesn't fall out of place all right so with our axle now supported with some jack stance i'm gonna go and remove these u-bolts i went around to both sides and sprayed the u-bolts with some pv blaster that way it should be a little bit easier on taking these off and if they snap that's fine we got some replacements i'm just going to use my impact and see if we can get these removed these factory u-bolts are going to have an 18-millimeter nut so if you guys saw in my replacement rear shock video for the cherokee i went and deleted the sway bar and the only thing that was left was just these brackets attached to u-bolts so since i'm leaving the sway bar off we can just discard these that are attached to here all right so we can take off our plate that sits on top of the leaf spring we're gonna be reusing that and then our u-bolt should just fall out from the bottom so we got one and then we got the other now we can repeat the process on the other side [Applause] sometimes if you tighten them up just a little bit helps break that rust bond free and then just back it off and then it comes right out now i just gotta move this broken sway bar link over to the other side so it's not covering this bolt i just folded it down before because this bolt that attaches the sway bar is actually seized wasn't coming out all right so now we got the axle 100 unbolted from the leaf springs and we're ready to lower the axle down a little bit by raising the body of the vehicle up that way it should give us some room to get the sleeve spring out okay so a couple things we need to pay attention to before we lift up the vehicle and separate the axle from the leaf springs one is take a look at your brake lines both your emergency brake cables if you have them and your hydraulic brake hose to see if they're long enough so that way um you're not hanging your axle by your brake line because you don't want to bust it that way if you guys watch my drum brake overhaul on this cherokee um you know i already replaced this rear brake line with an extended one um that's 21 inches long so this shouldn't be a problem another thing to uh take into consideration is the axle breather tube which is this guy right here um you don't want to put any tension on that because you don't want to rip that as well and then lastly if you still have your rear drive shaft hooked up like mine um you just want to make sure you're not hanging the axle by the drive shaft either we're not going to be going crazy high we're only going to be separating it maybe like six inches or so another thing is when we lift this up the axle and the leaf spring are probably going to be rusted together so you want to give it a kick when it's not too far off from the jack stands so that way it breaks free of that rust bond mine's all rusted so that side's broken free we do the same thing to the other side that side came undone as well if you have the rear drive shaft hook up it's going to be experiencing a severe angle you just want to make sure you're not putting too much weight on the drive shaft because you don't want to ruin any bearings or seals or joints all right so i got about a four or five inch gap right here i think that's plenty to work with now let's work on getting the rest of the leaf spring unbolted from the jeep all right so since we got the bolts broken free i'm going to see if i can zip out these front bolts with an impact i'm going to get an extension because this pinch seam is kind of getting in the way and i don't want to strip these out by going in at an angle all right so that front end is disconnected just keep in mind that this front end of the leaf spring is going to fall down just like how it did because it's not attached anymore all right so i got this bolt this far out off camera and i'm just going to finish it up the rest of the way so we can remove this side leaf spring you can tell this bolt is kind of seized in that uh bushing that's in the shackle because when i pull this back it kind of feels like it's spring loaded so that sleeve is actually kind of seized to the bolt but uh with it popping out like this hopefully it should just keep coming and we'll get this out of here all right got that bolt out now we should be able to take the release frame and remove it all right so same thing on the other side we're going to be removing this front and we're going to zip that out with an impact just going to put a hand under here because this is going to fall and i did put grease on these bolts about four years ago and look at that through four wisconsin winters and the grease is still on this one then we can get this last bolt over here all right that bolt is out and now this sleeve spring is free all right so we're about halfway through the rear lift install we got everything removed from the old suspension and now we're ready to put on the new stuff so basically the hard part's over especially if you have seized up leaf spring bushings so i'm going to start off by installing our new shackles and these are just factory replacement ones like i said earlier um i got these off rock auto for about 30 bucks and what's really nice is that they came with the factory metric hardware if you guys know with these leaf spring bolts you can't really get them at any hardware store because of the length and the thread pitch on them they just don't come in that size so you might have to go to fastenal or something like that and get them and they're a little bit harder since they are a flange bolt so the fact that these shackles are 30 bucks came with a shackle two bolts and nuts and a replacement leaf spring bushing it was a great deal for me so before i install these new shackles um one thing i'm going to do as you guys know is put anti-seize on everything inside these metal sleeves on our bushings on the bolts and even the threads that are on the jeep so i'm going to go and do that for both sides and i'm going to do it on the holes for the leaf springs as well so that way it's ready to go now when we install these shackles we want to make sure that when we install it the welded side over here where the eyelet is is facing towards the rear of the vehicle and as you can see with the shackle it's kind of pitched back a little bit so we're going to install it this way with the back of the vehicle that way on both sides all right so everything's got anti-seize on where the bolts are going to go so we can reinstall our new shackles make sure you got it installed the right way with the weld towards the back and that way the shackle will be kind of leaning towards the back all right so now i'm going to tighten up this bolt right here i'm not going to go all the way but tighten enough enough so that way i can still move it freely by hand all right so i got a little tension on it but i can still move it freely by hand so i'm just going to leave that there and we'll take care of the other side and do the same thing all right so now we can install our new leaf springs and the bigger eyelet that's on the leaf spring is going to be facing towards the front of the vehicle and the smaller one is going to be over here bolted to the shackle so i'm just going to weave our new spring in here this is where it helps if you have a friend that can help lift it up while you line up the bolt but i'm just going to set it down on the axle here and line up the back first and then we'll get to the front and since we got new bolts for the back here i'm going to use the other new bolt to attach a leaf spring and then on the front we're going to reuse our factory hardware for the front mounting and then we just got a nut we'll put over here all right so i'm going to begin tightening these two bolts that i just installed i'm not going to crank them down and torque them yet until we get the full weight of the vehicle on the springs over here so that way we don't have any premature wear on our bushings so these newer bolts what's kind of weird is that the bolt head is actually an 18 millimeter and the nut is actually a 21 millimeter so if you get these shackles that's what you're going to need to tighten these down all right so with this leaf spring installed we can go and install the other side it's going to be the exact same procedure slide in our rear bolt and then i will slide in the front one all right so with our leaf springs installed we can begin bolting the axle back onto the leaf springs so i'm going to lower the jeep down back onto the axle and we'll get it lined up the leaf spring now we can install our u-bolts so with bolting the axle back onto leaf spring one thing we have to pay attention to is lining up the pin that's on the bottom of the leaf spring into the leaf spring perch that has a hole right here so we're gonna lower down a little bit at a time and then kind of shift the axle by hand and make sure everything lines up and then we'll let it down a little bit more until we have full contact between the leaf spring and the leaf spring perch on the axle everything's looking pretty good so far so we'll keep going all right so i got the other side locked into place with that pin i'm just gonna do the same thing over here all right so that locked in i'm going to lower the jeep a little bit more so we have a little bit more compression on the springs and then we'll install our u-bolts all right so for installing our u-bolts we're going to take our plate and put it back on top of the leaf spring here as you can see it's not really flat because this hole right here where the center pin for the leaf spring is mounted this nut is actually a little bit too wide for this hole so i'm going to enlarge in this hole a little bit so that way this thing sits nice and flush on top of the leaf spring all right so i went and got that center hole drilled out on this plate right here unfortunately i didn't have a big enough drill bit so i just used a half inch and kind of walled it out ever so slightly and then give it a few taps and now it's sitting flush on top of the leaf spring right here so now we can take our three inch u-bolts since this is a chrysler eight and a quarter axle in the rear here um it has a three inch axle tube so we're gonna be using our three inch u-bolts now we're gonna feed them through underneath on the front side over here just going to wrap around the axle in front of the leaf spring and if the holes don't line up you might have to compress the u-bolt a little bit to make sure it lines up in the hole and we're gonna do the same thing with this other u-bolt except for on the back one over here they're gonna have to go through a little access hole that's built into this slower shock mount on the axle all right so with the u-bolts up into their place we're going to take a washer and put it on each of the bolts and then we'll take our nuts and thread them on now i'm just going to zip down these nuts real quick i'm not going to tighten up all the way yet until i get both sides done while you're doing this you want to take a look from the back side of the vehicle look up at the u-bolts make sure they're nice and perpendicular to the axle tube you don't want them to be on any weird angle you just want them to be nice and straight up and down and these nuts right here they're going to be a three-quarter all right so i'm going to leave it at that for now and we're going to go and do the same thing on the other side so same thing on this side we got our plate then we'll take our u-bolts and feed them into place all right so with our u-bolts installed on both sides we can go and raise up the rest of the jeep so that way all the axle weight is on these u-bolts and that way we don't have any uh weird shift going on when we finally torque these down um so that way everything should be nice and square uh with the leaf springs and axle so i'm gonna go and lift up the jeep right now and then we can torque these down all right so with the jeep up in the air again i'm gonna go and finish tightening up all the u-bolts up here basically i'm just gonna go by hand and make sure i tighten up every bolt uh equally so that way there's an equal amount of thread sticking up on every one of them and then we're gonna torque it down to a final torque spec of 55 foot pounds and rough country recommends after you put on 50 miles on your new suspension that you go and re-torque all the bolts that we're going to be uh basically taking apart and putting back on especially with these u-bolts because these guys stretch like crazy especially if they're brand new so these are going to be something that we're going to come back to after 50 miles and re-torque them back down to 55 foot-pounds [Music] [Music] all right so with this side all torqued down let's go and do the same thing on the other side all right so with all of our u-bolts torqued down we are ready to install our shocks and that's going to be the last components that we have to install for the rear suspension all right so for installing these rear shocks i'm going to start over here on the passenger side and i'm going to start by bolting it up to the jeep up here on the top side cutting the strap that's around this and then it's going to extend down then we can slip it down here onto the axle side a lot of people actually like doing it the opposite way but i found out with these nitrogen charged shocks it's kind of hard to move it if it gets up in there and you don't get it quite in place then it's kind of hard to line up the holes so i'm just going to do it this way get those two bolts in and then we'll extend it out and hook it up here down here on the axle so i went and reapplied some anti-seize to the bolts and to the welded nut that's in the jeep side so we're ready to install our new shocks all right so once i got those in by hand i'm just going to snug them up with a ratchet now for this bottom axle mount i went and put some uh grease over here where the bushing for the shock is going to be riding on and put a little bit in the bushing hole because this is a moving point in the suspension and we don't want our bushings to wear out right away so i'm going to cut the strap holding the tension on the shock and then we'll try and slip it over here and then i'm just going to put a little anti-seize on these threads got our washer our nut and then we can snug this nut down all right and that shock is installed now we can do the same thing on our last shock on the other side all right and that's it for the shocks all right guys that's it for the rear suspension we got everything all bolted in nicely the only thing i didn't do is torque down the leaf spring bolts that's because i want to do it when everything is back down on the ground but i'm not going to do it in this video because we still have the front lift to get installed and that's going to be in the next video but if you guys aren't going to stick around and want to know the torque specs for the springs on the front eyelets of the springs they're going to be 115 foot-pounds and then over here on the rear both rear bolts for each side are going to be 80 foot-pounds so you want to torque those down when the jeep is back on its full weight that way everything is compressed in the suspension and that way you don't have any premature wear on your bushings but other than that i want to thank rough country for sending out this lift kit once again help make these videos possible in the next video we're going to knock out the front suspension and get this thing back on its wheels so if you guys found this video helpful make sure to like and subscribe to the out keeping youtube channel where you can find more how-to videos on automotive and jeep related stuff as well as wheeling adventures if you guys want to help support the channel i got some out jeeping details you guys can purchase over on etsy i'll leave the link below where you can find that as well i'll also leave links down below for office suspension components i installed today as well as the front lift that i'm going to be installing in the next video and if you guys are wondering about what wheels and tires i'm going to be putting on this it's currently in the works i'm thinking about a 31 inch tire 32 i'm not going to be trimming a whole bunch of fenders or anything like that i want to give this keep a nice clean look even though it is pretty rusty but that's this summer's work on replacing all the rusted out stuff but if you guys have any wheel and tire combos in mind you can comment that below if you guys have any questions or comments please comment below and i'll be happy to answer i want to thank you guys one more time for watching and we'll see you guys in the next how-to [Music] you

Channel: OutJeeping

Views: 44,316

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Id: r2j6uaHCBUY

Length: 30min 9sec (1809 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021