First, you need a place to put the jeep up for a few weeks, preferably a shop that will do it for you. You need to get the jeep up high enough to work on it for hours at a time without stress to your back and room for tools to maneuver. If you have access to a lift I suggest this. If you do it on the floor you will hate yourself. Lift the jeep up as high as you can safely get it, place the jack stands (or lift arms) on the body mounts. If you place them on the frame you will have to move them in mid work. Place the other jack stands on the front and rear of the jeep for extra safety.

After you have set the Jeep in place remove the wheels and drop the axles, remove the drive lines, shocks, springs, brake line in the rear (upper bracket drivers side), calipers on the front, remove the front control arms, steering links, and finally all the control arms. Pull the front and rear axles out from under the jeep. Set them aside, we will play with them in a bit.

Now you need to get a jack stand to hold the transmission. Place the jack under the tranny and jack it up to assist in the removal of the skid plate. Remove the four bolts that hold the tranny mount in place on the skid. Carefully and thoughtfully remove the six bolts that hold the plate in place, and the plate will drop freely onto your face.

Now is the time to remove your transfer case and do the short shaft conversion/ 2wlo kit/teralow 4:1 kit, or Atlas.

With the plate and tcase removed, it is time to pull the muffler. Depending on the year of the TJ you will have two or four bolts at the manifold, and one or two O2 sensors. Be careful not to damage the sensors. Pull the pipes out and put them aside. You now have room to remove the front upper brackets.

Once you have the frame mounts cut off its time to play with the axle brackets.

Now you have to remove the frame mounted brackets for the control arms. The best way to do this is to cut the bracket just below the weld on the frame, be very careful to not cut into the frame. (If you do, you may weld the hole and grind it flush again.) once you have cut to a good depth on the bracket you can take an air chisel and chisel the bracket off at the cut. Then take your grinder and grind off the rest of the weld. You need to remove all four lower brackets and the front upper brackets. The front uppers need to be especially clean and well done. The upper rears do not need to be removed. I removed the passenger side upper for practice. You need the drivers upper rear as the hole for the brake line bracket is there.

Front axle; DO NOT REMOVE THE LOWER BRACKETS, you need these. Do not cut into the axle tube. You do not really have to remove any control arm brackets on the front, but I removed the track bar bracket and the upper passenger-side bracket. You can also hack off the diff upper mount, but it is not necessary. As you can see the track bar bracket is gone as well as the sway bar brackets and upper front control arm mount.

If you are doing the steering conversion, you will need to remove the sway bar mounts. This is a good time to remove the stock steering system. (High steer kit) Get an impact gun and pull the nut off of the pitman arm. Use a pitman arm puller to remove the arm. Place the new pitman arm on in the same position and use locktight and gun it down to the specified torque.

Rear axle, you need to remove all the control arm brackets, and the track bar bracket. Do not cut into the axle tube. You will also cut off the shock mounts. All that will be left on the axle is your spring pads, and sway bar mounts.

Put the channels back on, make sure they are in place all the way to the rear, (use the dead blow hammer if you have too) and tighten all of the six bolts up tight. Go ahead and prep for welding, (disconnect the battery) and then weld the four stitch welds, and the inside frame above and around the control arm brackets. Clean up the welds and paint.

You can now install the skid plate. You must modify your old plate to fit around the arms, or purchase the proper plate from Tera. We purchased the proper plate, and it bolted right up and lifted the Tcase one inch for belly up clearance.

Place the rear upper brackets in place. The instructions say flush with the rear body mounts. I put mine as close as I could, as they would not butt up cleanly. Then I found some hole in the frame and measured from there to make sure they were in the same position. Mark the frame on the inside where the bracket touches the frame and on the outside where the bracket hooks over near the body mount. Clean the paint off. I re-measured and then measured again, and then made sure that the bracket was in the right place. I then measured again and welded the bracket onto the frame. The drivers side bracket fits over the brake lines and other electrical lines. Be careful when welding to not burn these.

The front brackets fit with the mount on the outside of the frame. Place the bracket on the frame and run a bolt through the hole in the frame. (This is a crumple hole, so the frame will collapse in this spot in a wreck) Then run a bolt through the top of the bracket. With the dead blow hammer, whack the bracket back and up. You want the bolt as far back into the hole as possible, and the bottom of the bracket up as flush to the body as possible. Do this on both sides. You will then mark the frame, I marked all the way around.

Replace the brackets like above, making sure the bracket is as far back as it will go, and as flush with the body as it will get. Tighten the two bolts and weld the bracket into place, I had the sides and bottom fully welded.

The belly up skid can be bolted into place and the Tcase mounted to it. If you did not purchase the skid and wish to use your old one, you must cut it to allow the lower arms to clear. I did not do this, and have no advice other than for the time and effort, get the proper skid.

When you have all the brackets welded on the frame we can move to the front axle. The bracket for the upper triangulated links needs to be in the middle of the axle. With the axle on the stand, place the bracket and u-bolt it on loosely. Now, with a tape measure, measure from the zurk fitting on top of a knuckle to the center of the bracket. Then do this on the other side until you have the bracket centered. Now the bracket must be parallel with the face of the diff. Put the angle finder or bubble level on the face of the diff, get it to where it is level. Then using the level, place the front face of the bracket so it is the same as the diff.

Once you have it in place, tighten it down and double check. We welded mine in place.

Take the front arms and mount them to the body, Preset the length of the arms 33 ½ inches on the bottom and 28 inches on the top. Using the floor jack position the axle under the jeep, and line it up. Bolt the arms up (loosely).

Place the springs on the axle, up over the bump stops Place the springclips on the springs to hold them in place. Jack the axle up to where you can attach the shocks. The springs will be just unseated at the top, or just starting compression.

With the axle somewhat secure, remove the passenger side knuckle. To do this, you must pull the brakes and remove the rotor. You need to pull the bearing assembly. There are three 12 point 13mm bolts on the back of the knuckle. Remove them. The bearing may come out easy. If it does not, use dummy bolts threaded back into the carrier and use an air hammer to push the bearing carrier out. Remove the carrier and the passenger side shaft will come out. Oil may come out of the tube, To help keep this from happening have the axle jacked up on the passenger side a bit. Remove the two carter pins and nuts holding it to the axle. You can use a Puller, BFH dead blow, (if you don’t care to save it) air hammer, or just a big sledge to remove the knuckle. Hitting it on the top of the knuckle, you can pop it off. Place the new high steer knuckle in place and tighten the nuts to proper torque, and insert the keys

Put the bump stop extensions in the springs. Place the rear axle under the Jeep and attach the arms. Place the springs on the pads and bolt the stops on to the pad. They will hold the springs in place. Lift the axle into position and attach the shocks.

Place the tires on the axles and drop the jeep down. Make sure the axles are centered. Check the driveline angles. To adjust the axle position left to right. Use the upper links. If you have a straight frame and positioned the front center bracket properly, they should be the same length. If you shorten one you must lengthen the other to maintain the castor. Set the lower arms to the exact same length, the alignment shop will use these to set the castor and thrust angle. Set the rear the same. Make sure the pinion angle is such that it is pointed at the transfer case output. Adjust the steering so that the tires basically point straight, and tighten it down. Do not drive this on the road in this condition, get an alignment first.

Raise the Jeep up again and tighten all the fittings, bolts and lock nuts that you can, except the ends with the rubber bushings. You need to tighten these when the Jeep is on the ground. Make sure you reattach the rear brake line and bleed the brakes.

Attach the sway bar extensions or disconnects (front and rear). Attach the sway bars.

Double check all bolts and nuts, locktight and use a torque wrench on all bolts. This is your suspension. If an upper arm comes off, bad things happen. If a lower arm comes off, other bad things can happen. Don’t get excited. Do it right.

IMPORTANT. Grease all the zurks on the arms before you drive the Jeep.

Take the Jeep to a very reputable alignment shop. You just spent thousands of dollars on a system, no need to skimp on the final set up. Tell them you want a full alignment, including thrust angles, and straighten the steering wheel.

Take the Jeep to the Muffler shop. Show them these pictures, and tell them that’s how it needs to be run. I have a turbo max 6 inch muffler. It’s the largest most quiet one I could find. It still sounds good though.

This is a message from Tera regarding the muffler.

“The recommended muffler is a Magnaflow 10416 which is a 4 inch round with
2.5 inlet and outlet. A quieter solution is the Magnaflow 12616 which is a 6
inch round. It fits but is a tight squeeze between the drive shaft and upper
control arm.

Rand Ridges
Tera Manufacturing Inc
Phone: 801/288-2585

This is the same situation as above, but from the rear.  Notice how much room the 31"s have.

Ok I purchased bald 35" tires. (I really wanted the rims, 5 for $300.00 15x10 3.75" backspace) So I put them on to see how they would clear and went back to 29 road.    The tires *just* touch the flares.

Ok the front may be iffy if I have to turn, but hey that’s why the flares are flexible.  Is that enough stuff?  There is about 1/4" before I hit the joint holding the flare to the fender.  Just enough fore new tires.

The rear bump stops could be shortened just a bit allowing for more up travel, but not much more.

Show with 35 inch tires.

The only feasable way to get more travel would be to go to six inch springs and hoops or coilovers.  As it is now the springs just unseat at full drop and are just short of over compression.