Finally lifting my KK

Ted15 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:52 pm

Bmxer524 wrote:

Being sea level helps that little bit here. I want 32s just so I can fill the gap that my 31s leave...

You shouldn't have very much room there and remember, they're wider too.

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Tue Sep 01, 2015 10:15 pm

I live out on the other Island which has some hills, I try out to Northern Jersey when I can, and I usually try to get to the Catskills or the Poconos once in a while. So if I continue with the 32/4.56 route, it'd be good for the latter two at least. Then it just comes down to rubbing in the wheel wells during offroading which can be fixed with some trimming and hammering. I also know my gas mileage is going to take a hit no matter what. And I'm back to square one with the tires and gears.

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:19 pm

Ted15 wrote:

Bmxer524 wrote:

Being sea level helps that little bit here. I want 32s just so I can fill the gap that my 31s leave...

You shouldn't have very much room there and remember, they're wider too.

I have a little bit. It's enough to make me want bigger lol. I'm ok with pounding the pinch weld and maybe reworking the wheel well liners a little.

Homeward, you'll love the extra power upstate. Mine tends to kick down a lot in the mountains (stock 3.73s and 31s). If I don't use cruise control and keep the speed from going down hill, it isn't as bad. I'm a lead foot though. I have no problems rolling 80-90 on the Thruway...

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Mon Sep 28, 2015 4:20 pm

Update: Lift and wheels on. Lots of rubbing, cut the wheel liners out and pounded the pinch welds. No rub now except at full lock which is minimal. Going to get something in the wells before the snow starts falling. 20-21 mpg highway, not too bad. Better than what I was expecting. Now to figure out what to put in the old spare tire location and get a hitch mounted spare holder.

Bmxer524, smooth ride in the mountains. Was at Hunter for Oktoberfest and the Jeep performed great on the roads up there.

tommudd · **Posted:** Mon Sep 28, 2015 5:24 pm

Not much flex room there in front is there
Why those wheels ? Just curious

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:28 pm

I'll admit, I was never a fan of the newer Rubi rims. However, they work really well on the KK.

What do you measure from center of the hub to the fender?

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:36 pm

tommudd wrote:

Not much flex room there in front is there
Why those wheels ? Just curious

I still have to play around with the Adjust-A-Strut's. As for the wheels, I wanted to be different.

Bmxer524 wrote:

I'll admit, I was never a fan of the newer Rubi rims. However, they work really well on the KK.

What do you measure from center of the hub to the fender?

Can't remember the number. Will double check when I get out of work.

tommudd · **Posted:** Mon Sep 28, 2015 11:42 pm

Just curious on the wheels, have had 3 different owners try and give me their sets :lol:

When I tell them they won't fit without adapters they response is " what do you mean they are both Jeeps" LOL
Lifting KKs just never seems like they are as high as you could get a KJ
Carry on

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:06 am

Bmxer524 wrote:

I'll admit, I was never a fan of the newer Rubi rims. However, they work really well on the KK.

What do you measure from center of the hub to the fender?

Back from the docks,

Front center to fender ~20"

Rear center to fender ~23"

tommudd wrote:

Just curious on the wheels, have had 3 different owners try and give me their sets :lol:

When I tell them they won't fit without adapters they response is " what do you mean they are both Jeeps" LOL
Lifting KKs just never seems like they are as high as you could get a KJ
Carry on

I'm running Spider Trax to get them to fit. I was a bit annoyed when I started looking at those wheels and finding out I needed an adapter. But I'm here now. We'll see how it goes over the next year.

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:32 am

Homeward_Bound wrote:

Bmxer524 wrote:

I'll admit, I was never a fan of the newer Rubi rims. However, they work really well on the KK.

What do you measure from center of the hub to the fender?

Back from the docks,

Front center to fender ~20"

Rear center to fender ~23"

tommudd wrote:

Just curious on the wheels, have had 3 different owners try and give me their sets :lol:

When I tell them they won't fit without adapters they response is " what do you mean they are both Jeeps" LOL
Lifting KKs just never seems like they are as high as you could get a KJ
Carry on

I'm running Spider Trax to get them to fit. I was a bit annoyed when I started looking at those wheels and finding out I needed an adapter. But I'm here now. We'll see how it goes over the next year.

You're front is only at about 2" of lift. You can easily crank that up to 21.5" for 3.5" of lift, or 22". Of course you'll need another alignment after cranking it up. And the closer you go to 22" (4" of lift) the harder it will be to align. There's even a few guys that struggle to get camber in at 4".

tommudd · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:03 am

THATS why it looks so low in front, bet if it was lifted to where it should be you wouldn't of had to cut/ trim so much
On the wheels, thats why I don't have 3 sets of free JK Rubicon wheels laying here, refuse to run adapters

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 9:51 am

Bmxer524 wrote:

Homeward_Bound wrote:

Bmxer524 wrote:

I'll admit, I was never a fan of the newer Rubi rims. However, they work really well on the KK.

What do you measure from center of the hub to the fender?

Back from the docks,

Front center to fender ~20"

Rear center to fender ~23"

tommudd wrote:

Just curious on the wheels, have had 3 different owners try and give me their sets :lol:

When I tell them they won't fit without adapters they response is " what do you mean they are both Jeeps" LOL
Lifting KKs just never seems like they are as high as you could get a KJ
Carry on

I'm running Spider Trax to get them to fit. I was a bit annoyed when I started looking at those wheels and finding out I needed an adapter. But I'm here now. We'll see how it goes over the next year.

You're front is only at about 2" of lift. You can easily crank that up to 21.5" for 3.5" of lift, or 22". Of course you'll need another alignment after cranking it up. And the closer you go to 22" (4" of lift) the harder it will be to align. There's even a few guys that struggle to get camber in at 4".

I'm heading back to the shop in a few days to get the torque checked and gear oil changed. While I'm there I'll have them check out the front end.

tommudd wrote:

THATS why it looks so low in front, bet if it was lifted to where it should be you wouldn't of had to cut/ trim so much
On the wheels, thats why I don't have 3 sets of free JK Rubicon wheels laying here, refuse to run adapters

The shop I went to said they have done KK's before, just not this extensive. When I left, the head guy told me the fronts are on the softer side.

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:36 pm

It's easy to crank up. They'll lift the front to take some weight off the suspension, then crank it down a little. How much, I'm not exactly sure.

tommudd · **Posted:** Tue Sep 29, 2015 11:49 pm

Homeward_Bound wrote:

The shop I went to said they have done KK's before, just not this extensive. When I left, the head guy told me the fronts are on the softer side.

More than likely some cheap spacer lift and have no clue how to properly setup what you have
Big problem with a lot of shops
But have them do what Bmxer said
May take a few tries to get it where you want it but then of course another alignment
I would crank it down at least 1/2-3/4 of an inch to start and see where that outs you at
Took me a few tries on mine to get them where i wanted them

Gageraid · **Posted:** Wed Sep 30, 2015 12:44 am

It's a great looking setup.
It'll look even better and be more functional if you take Tom's advice and lift it a bit more in the front as mentioned. :2cents:

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Wed Sep 30, 2015 2:00 am

Bmxer524 wrote:

It's easy to crank up. They'll lift the front to take some weight off the suspension, then crank it down a little. How much, I'm not exactly sure.

If i ran the numbers right, I think it's got to go somewhere near 3/4 to a full turn.

tommudd wrote:

Homeward_Bound wrote:

The shop I went to said they have done KK's before, just not this extensive. When I left, the head guy told me the fronts are on the softer side.

More than likely some cheap spacer lift and have no clue how to properly setup what you have
Big problem with a lot of shops
But have them do what Bmxer said
May take a few tries to get it where you want it but then of course another alignment
I would crank it down at least 1/2-3/4 of an inch to start and see where that outs you at
Took me a few tries on mine to get them where i wanted them

The spacer lift is what they probably have done before. They are, surprise surprise, heavy into JK's, YJ's, and XJ's.

I should be heading back to that shop either Thursday or sometime next week. Moving the Adjust-A-Strut's also entails a realignment, so I'll have them do it. Just to be clear, crank down to go up? After running the numbers, I think i need somewhere between 3/4 and 1 turn to bring me to where I should've been last week.

Gageraid wrote:

It's a great looking setup.
It'll look even better and be more functional if you take Tom's advice and lift it a bit more in the front as mentioned. :2cents:

Thanks, it's been something I've wanted to do for a while. After I get the suspension straightened out, it should be more functional and ready for what I want to do with it.

Bmxer524 · **Posted:** Wed Sep 30, 2015 2:40 am

Yes, crank down to gain lift. It'll be more than 1 turn, as Tom said it'll be moving down 3/4-1". Basically all you're doing is moving the spring down the shock, which in turn lifts the Jeep.

tommudd · **Posted:** Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:32 am

Then find a better shop :ROTFL:

Local shop where I used to live had been in business for about 20 years
They advertised heavily that they had done it all, seen it all etc
I avoided the place since I knew they never worked on Libertys much if any
But stopped one day to price a new winch etc
I came out to every tech around and under mine looking at the suspension and asking a ton of questions how i got it so high
:ROTFL:

Owner came out and gave them all H*** and told them to get back to work since they would never deal in a cheap setup like that :ROTFL:

If he only knew :goink:

sean1214 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:38 pm

Homeward_Bound wrote:

Update: Lift and wheels on. Lots of rubbing, cut the wheel liners out and pounded the pinch welds. No rub now except at full lock which is minimal. Going to get something in the wells before the snow starts falling. 20-21 mpg highway, not too bad. Better than what I was expecting. Now to figure out what to put in the old spare tire location and get a hitch mounted spare holder.

Bmxer524, smooth ride in the mountains. Was at Hunter for Oktoberfest and the Jeep performed great on the roads up there.

Really clean set up.

Love it.

Homeward_Bound · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:20 pm

Thanks Sean.

Just started a new job, but finally got the lift leveled out. ~22.5" front corners. Might drop it a half inch for a better CV angle. ESP and traction control are activating on slow turns. But if other threads hold true, throwing some money at the local jeep dealership for a calibration should alliviate the problem. Called them up the other day and the guy was surprised by the fact there are 32's on a Liberty. After putting me on hold, he got back to me saying that the calibration may or may not take... Looked for a Hypertech tuner, but no luck as the 2012's are not supported.

Now onto the fender liners. Got a set of front liners. On a dry fit, looks like nothing ever happened. No need to cut anything. However, the fasteners are annoying. I got cheapo fasteners from auto zone just to help fit the liners in, but I would rather use the correct ones. The Mopar website cites 3 different fasteners needed. Kinda screwy. Any leads onto the correct ones?

Edit: POM rivets from Harbor Freight should do

Finally lifting my KK

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