I will be there 

I rolled in a few minutes after 9am and ended up heading out about 6pm on the dot.  Long day but lots of work and even worked around some issues.

The Jeep is an 02 TJ with the 4.0 and a manual trans.  Axles are stock open/open dana 30/35.  

Lift kit was a used first gen skyjacker double flex 4" with adjustable control arms.  The kit wasn't quite complete so there were a few supplementary Rubicon Express parts. In all we started with the following parts.

-4" Skyjacker springs

-Full upper and lower adjustable arms with Heim joints

-Skyjacker front adjustable track bar

-New Skyjacker shocks

-New RE front brake lines

-New RE transfer case drop bracket

-New RE 1602 rear track bar bracket

We started with the front end by putting the rig up on jack stands and pulling out all the stock parts.  The dodge boys jumped right in but seemed to be utterly baffled by metric hardware. (as a result, they dont see the TJ as a Mopar and were slightly offend by notions otherwise)  The adjustable control arms were set to the correct length from the previous owner so install was simple doing one arm at a time. The kit did not come with the bump stop extensions but since the rig is still on smaller tires there is no need for them yet.  After the springs were installed we did the brake line swap and bleed.  Prior to installing the track bar I noticed that the hardware on the heim joint was only a ~1/2" bolt and not  9/16 or 5/8" like most other aftermarket adjustable track bars.  A quick check of skyjacker's website showed that the track bar was to use a smaller 1/2" bolt with a tapered insert in-place of the factory TRE style track bar.  The insert was not included with the kit so the factory track bar was re-used by drilling a new hole for the axle mount 3/4" closer to the drivers side of the bracket.  Shoutout to Rich for having some nice split-point drill bits.  With the track bar re-installed we moved on to the rear.

With the rear, the disassembly hit a snag early when the largest Torx bit in the shop only went to T50.  The rear track bar on a TJ uses a T55 so a quick trip to autozone was in order as well as a break for lunch. Mike brought some well seasoned sliced tri-tip and we had some good tri-tip sandwiches for lunch.  Fighting off sleep from overeating, we started back on the lift.  Mike was busy with the rear sway bar links while I installed the transfer case drop and Rich and Dave fought to free rusty jam nuts on the rear control arms.  The rear lowers and sway bar links went in easily but the RE track bar bracket took some prying and a C clamp to get the holed to line up on the axle.  While adjusting the rear uppers to length it was noted that the misalignment spacers were ovaled out so the stock rear uppers were left in place.

With the end in sight we tossed the springs in a set to install the rear track bar into the RE bracket.  At this point we realized that the bracket was at an angle compared to the stock rear track bar and intended for a rig with a CV driveshaft.  Turns out we needed the RE1603 bracket instead.  At this point Mike pulled the bracket back out and Rich brought out the welder.  The welds on the bracket were cut and the bracket bent to match the angle needed.  Some small pieces of steel were welded to the bracket to gusset it into the new position.  After the bracket was painted it was tossed back onto the axle and the rear shocks installed.  Mike then went through and re-torqued all of the track bars and control arms and the nuts were marked with a grease pencil.

A short test drive revealed a fair bit of clunking in the control arms from worn heims but overall a stable ride.  Bump steer was present but expected and the fairy firm coils were well controlled by the new shocks. (turns out the Skyjacker spring rate is lower than the RE spring rate so this is not surprising)  Having a winch helped with the ride somewhat but adding armor will soften the ride further.  No vibrations were felt up to 70mph on the freeway.  

Once returning to the shop we visually checked all of the grease pencil marks and did a measuring tape alignment and re-centered the steering wheel.  Toe was set at about 1/8" in.  In all it was one of the cleaner installs not using a complete kit.  The heims need some attention as they are noisy and have some slop but since the vehicle is a toy and not a daily driver this isn't too much of an issue.  The next steps for the lift are as follows:

-Recheck nuts and bolts at 100 and again at 500 miles.

-Source replacement heims or different adjustable control arms (depends on cost since some heims can be more expensive that completely new arms)

-Check for rubbing and other issues at prairie city

-Order a new rear track bar bracket to replace our temporary fix (not a shot a Rich's welding skills, but these are cheap to do right - http://www.roughcountry.com/tr.....-1087.html)

Mike G said
Hey kris just checking about that new bracket but it says it's for 2.5" inch lifts only. I tried to pm you but it gave an error code 404  

It should say 2.5"+ lifts.  That part number will work for you.  Generally you get what you pay for with suspension parts but this is a rare case where, except for metalcloak who uses a the gold zinc plating, all companies are selling the same powder-coated mild steel bracket.