I hope it’s okay to post this here….I did this on my 2005 Limited Liberty CRD
Installed my Daystar 1.5/2.0 lift Thursday and Friday nights alone in my garage at my house. I have a limited selection of tools, but would suggest anyone doing this invest in a long ½” breaker bar. A rented spring compressor from AutoZone came in handy for the rear, as did having two floor jacks, and one bottle jack. I did not have any problems with the lower clevis bolt and did not need to use a crow bar.
To do this project, I followed the following steps:
1. Disconnect battery. It is held down by a plastic piece that needs to be unbolted with a 10mm socket. Remove the battery.
2. The battery tray is connected to the truck with three 10mm nuts..remove these and you should be able to lift the battery tray out of the way towards the windshield. This will provide enough access to the strut bolts on the driver’s side.
3. Move to the passenger side, and remove the air filter. Loosen the clamp on the air hose going to the engine, and remove the two Philips head screws on the airflow sensor, lift out, and set aside. The air box itself has three snap-in type posts, so it can be pulled out.
4. At this point, two of four passenger side nuts are exposed. To get access to the other two I removed the nut on the cover plate located below the power steering reservoir and bent the plate up enough so I could get access to the remaining strut bolts. I did not see an easy way to fully remove this plate. I did remove the 10mm bolt holding the ps reservoir to make access easier.
5. Remove both tires, and remove the disc brake caliper and tie-off to the upper control arm.
6. Disconnect the anti-sway bar; loosen the upper and lower clevis bolts. I read in another post an easy way to break the upper ball joint free is to loosen the bolt most of the way (Tip – make sure you clean the threads before attempting to remove the bolt – I almost had a real problem here), lower the control arm assembly and hit the upper control arm next to the ball joint – it should break free pretty easily. Remove the ball joint bolt and tie-off to the upper control arm. At the same time the clevis should slide most of the way off the bottom of the strut. All I had to do was place one foot on the brake rotor, press down and the clevis had just enough clearance to free the lower end of the strut.
7. Remove the lower clevis bolt and the four top strut nuts. Same applies to both sides.
8. I had a local shop install my spacers for me – and don’t forget to have the washers/spacers installed.
9. Re-installation was fairly easy. Place the strut back in place and support so you can get one of the upper nuts started – do not tighten it though. Reinstall the clevis on the strut – if it won’t go, use the jack on the lower control arm to press it up until it’s even with the bottom of the strut. Lower the jack enough so the lower clevis bolt can be re-installed – For me I still had 1” of room so I had to keep the jack under it. Once the lower clevis bolt is in raise the jack a bit to get the rest of the top strut nuts hand tight. Tighten the upper clevis bolt, then tighten the strut nuts.
10. Re-connect the upper ball joint, the brake caliper, and the anti-sway bar. Note – I did not need a C-clamp to compress the caliper, but some people might. Done…air box and battery install reverse of installation.
11. The rear was very easy. I jacked up both sides and placed jack stands under the rear frame. Remove the tires and support each lower control arm (not sure term) with a floor jack, remove the lower bolt to the shock, and they two anti-sway bolts. I used a spring compressor on the springs to make things easier. Drop the jack, remove the spring and the lower isolation pad – replace spacer. I had to use a bottle jack to push the axle low enough to get the spring back in with the new spacer. Remove jack, spring compressor, reconnect anti-sway bar (after both sides re-installed), and re-connect shock – can easily replace but I chose not to for now due to $$. Done.
I just want to thank so many people here for providing excellent information. I knew what to expect before removing the tires! I did not take pics or measurements, but I think it looks great! For reference I am going to copy some other posts I found very helpful in visualizing the install…
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... php?t=5146
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... php?t=6314
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... sc&start=0
http://www.lostjeeps.com/forum/phpBB3/vie ... php?t=4862
The kit I used can be found here:
http://www.rockymountainsusp.com/index. ... KJ09123+DA
Thanks!! John
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