Front cradle realignment

audiboy86 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 5:45 pm

Well as most of you know by now shortly after getting my new front bumper I took a hard hit on my passenger side. Before that my alignment was darn close with an original set of JBA UCAs. Well long story short 55 mph hit on the passenger side every bushing replaced and she still pulls. So I crawled underneath it to get some measurements and low and behold my engine cradle is shifted. I can see it has from the marks where it is bolted to the frame. My alignment guy told me it isn't out by much and seems the cradle hasn't moved by to much. So my ? Is how hard would it be to shift the cradle back?

At The Helm · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 8:48 pm

You could hit something at 55mph on the driver side to even it out. :ROTFL:

Just kidding.

I imagine it being pretty hard to do unless the bolt holes are just ovaled. Then you could try loosening them and pounding it back. If the unibody is bent i think you might be sol.

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Sat Mar 24, 2012 8:50 pm

It's not hard but also not a real fun job on newer KJ's,'02 KJ's had cradle centering bolts which the newer ones do not have.

Simply raise the front end off the ground,with the wheels not touching the ground place jack stands under the front jack locations.Loosen all 4 cradle mounting bolts about 1-2 turns.With large prybar re-center the cradle and torque mounting bolts.I beleive the front 2 mount bolts(M14 bolts) are torqued to 120lbs-ft and the rear 2(m12 bolts) are about 80lbs-ft.

blackwidowkj06 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:37 pm

What did you hit at 55mph???
Hope you get the problem fixed. Keep us updated.

audiboy86 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:44 pm

Shortly after getting back from Moab I got hit by a young girl doing about 55 in a honda civic. Completely total lossed the civic and offset my alignement crushed my UCA and cracked my spindleall the way around my wheel bearing. But now i have takne some time with a few different pry bars and crawling under a few different KJs. Thank god for walmart being busy and people not asking ?s. I finally got my indexing holes looking very close to right and the shift lines are pretty well realigned.

blackwidowkj06 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:20 pm

It seems to happen...we put a lot of time, money and effort in our KJs then someone has to ruin it. Glad you're okay. I'm waiting to see what happens with my KJ. :-(

These Liberties are tough as nails though.

Front cradle realignment

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