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I'm Chris Duke and today on Motorz we're going to be installing a SkyJacker lift kit on a
68 Jeep
Hey, welcome to Motorz. Today we're going to be working on Blue Dog
our old 68 Jeep CJ5 and we're going to be removing the old worn out
2" suspension kit and replacing it with a new 2" suspension kit
from SkyJacker which includes new springs, shocks, a new pitman
arm and a steering stabilzer as well as all the necessary hardware to do the
job. Now you're probably wondering why we're going to be replacing our old
2" kit with a new one, that's because in a future episode of Motorz
we're going to doing a spring over axle conversion which will give us
another four and a half inches or so of height and that's going to give us the room
we need for our larger wheel and tire combination. But for right now
lets get this thing jacked up and get these tires off. We've
got our Jeep supported by jack stands right underneath our frame but we needed some additional
height, so if you're in the same situation grab a large block of wood
or do what we did - we're using out 12,000 pound capacity ramps to give us that extra height
either way, you need a safe and stable surface. Now the order
in which we're going to remove these old components, we're going to remove the shocks first and then the U
bolts and then our springs. But before you begin you will need to put a jack underneath
the axle that is going to release some of that tension on our springs and prevent the
axle from moving around. Now the tools you're going to need all available from the Sears Blue Tool Crew
for an installation such as this include ratchets with various
extensions and sockets both deep and standard some pliers
diagonal cutters, a breaker bar, a torque wrench, flat blade
screwdriver, various wrenches, white lithium grease
and for that pitman arm you're going to need a pickle fork as well as a 3" gear
puller. You may also need some anti-seize for those new bolts if you have an old
vehicle, like the one we're working on. You're going to need some mallets, some rags
some safety glasses, gloves, an electric impact or
you may also need some air tools. Now we'll be right back after
this break with more Motorz.
We're going to use our half inch Craftsman ratchet to remove our bottom nut on our shocks
and then a 3/8" ratchet for the top
Here's the reason we gotta get rid of our old gas shocks because when you compress them
they don't rebound at all, unlike our brand new SkyJacker
shocks which take quite a lot more pressure to compress
and as you can see they rebound just fine
With those U bolts out of the way, it's time to get our springs off
next
Using some lithium based grease lightly coat the outside of the
bushing and then insert it into the spring
then do the same thing for the metal insert
wth the bushings installed
in the new leaf springs, we can do ahead and install them now you may notice that we didn't show
you removing the bolts off the old springs, that's because we ended up having to cut them off, they just
got seized in there over time. So we got smart on our new bolts, we put some
anti-seize around the non-threaded part of the bolts
there we go
Now repeat the same process
up here on the front but you don't want to tighten that bolt down until you set it down
on the ground
After bolting in your new springs you could install the new u bolts
provided by SkyJacker and the stock U bolt pad
to that you have to line up this pin on the spring into the hole that
is on this perch
Now in the same way as you uninstalled it, this bolt here faces
forward and out now one of the other things that we had to do in order for it
to fit was that we had to drill out the holes just a little bit
Now we're going to go ahead
and finger tighten these nuts down here on the bottom but before you tighten them all the way down
make sure that these are straight up verticle just like that
torque the nuts down to 80 ft-lbs of torques. We're going to go ahead and use our Craftsman
ratchet and a 3/4" socket
now if you get tired of wrenching
like I do from time to time and you've got some air tools like we do, thanks to the Sears Blue Tool Crew
you can take of the job in a lot less
time with one of these, the Thunder Gun from Ingersoll-Rand you can get one these
guys from the Blue Tool Crew as well
You don't want to tighten them all the day
because you still need to torque it down to about 80 ft-lbs too
to install the new SkyJacker shocks, you have to install these two bushings as well as the boot
and on some applications you may also have to install this metal sleeve, but for our Jeep
we don't need it. So grab some lithium based grease
squirt some on the end and hammer it on in
Yeah!
With our shock fully assembled, we can go ahead and
install it on our Jeep
When you're tightening
down these nuts for the shocks you just want to tighten this until that bushing is
slightly compressed. Now before we get to the rear suspension there's two more things we
have to do up front. We need to install a new steering stabilizer and a new drop
pitman arm, both provided by SkyJacker. First thing we're going to do is we're
disconnect this drag link right here so we have access to the old steering stabilizer which we're
going to remove next. To seperate the drag link from the pitman arm we've gotta remove the
cotter pin and this nut then we can take a pickle fork and jam it in
the middle there and seperate the two
Using our Craftsman ratchet we're going to remove our steering stabilizer
Install the new brackets provided by
SkyJacker for the new steering stabilizer
Installing our steering stabilizer we wanted to make
sure that this bracket on the right hand side is as far over but not getting
in the way of anything and the bracket over the left hand side needs to be just
over far enough so that the steering stabilizer is about half way out which we've
marked with a little black pen right there. So once we've got that all into position
we're going to use our Makita impact and tighten these up
same thing here, you just want to tighten this until these bushings are compressed
a little bit. Once you've fully installed your steering
stabilizer, you'll want to turn it to ensure you have clearance for everything
Before removing the old pitman arm , you want to mark
the steering sector so that when you put on the new pitman arm it goes on the exact same
position
With our new drop
pitman arm installed and our drag link reattached we can put on our wheels
and tires and get to the rear of the vehicle.
With the front out of the way, it's time to get to the rear which is going to be a lot easier because we don't
all those steering components to deal with. We just have to swap out the shocks as well as the
springs. We've got this thing all jacked up, lets get to it
On top of our rear springs, we've got
these angled shims, we're going to reuse these so make sure you hang onto them
This week we
thought we'd check out a car show series that's becoming a nationwide event called
Coffee and Cars. We caught up with some of the coolest cars on the road at the
Houston, Texas Coffee and Cars located in Uptown Park in Houston, Texas
as luck would have it, it was a beautiful day and the turnout was incredible
featuring some of the most amazing vehicles you've ever seen
people brought everything from classic restorations to exotic supercars
to late model muscle cars, there was something for everyone including a custom
twin-turbo and supercharged Ford GT and a
very rare Porsche GT3
all in all it was a great turnout and a fantastic show
for automotive enthusiasts and spectators alike at the Houston Coffee and Cars
no matter what you're into, whether it be exotics, classics, or even
Deloreans, these incredible machines are on display for everyone to check out
the spectators even enjoy the grand finale when all of these cars fired
up and left the show. For more information about Coffee and Cars check
out coffeeandcarshouston.com
and now it's time for Partz! Brought to you by the Sears Blue Tool Crew
Hey, if your check engine light is on, instead of taking your vehicle
in for repairs, you may want to consider diagnosing it yourself
you might be able to fix a simple problem without spending a ton of time and money
96 and newer vehicles have an OBD-II port that allows you to connect
a scantool to read codes and diagnose many engine
problems. This type of tool is what the guys at a service department use
when your check enging light is on. The Innova Equus
3160 OBD-II scantool available from the Sears Blue Tool Crew
can help you diagnose these problems with all OBD-II equipped
vehicles. It has the additional feature of being able to diagnose
ABS faults with GM, Ford and Chrysler vehicles
using its live data streaming feature can also view real-time data
such as RPMs, temperatures and more. Just plug the scantool in
to your OBD-II port and it immediately goes to work
you can also hook it up to your PC's serial port to save and email diagnostic
reports, download flash updates, and get more information
Save time and money when your vehicle has a conniption with Innova's OBD-II scan port
available from the Sears Blue Tool Crew. Do you want bigger brakes without
the hassle of installing new calipers and having to bleed your brakes?
Check out Baer Brakes Errataspeed Plus 2 brake system
This direct replacement upgrade system includes Baer's 14 inch two piece
cross drilled, and slotted rotors and all the stainless steel hardware and brackets
to relocate your factory calipers. The increased diameter rotor
upgrade system uses your factory calipers to give you greater leverage
and improved brake torque. If you have larger than stock wheels
and you want better braking, then you should definitely check out the Errataspeed
Plus 2 from Baer Brakes avaialble for most applications.
After you
got your vehicle lowered back down to the ground you want to tighten all your spring
eye bolts and then you're going to get a four wheel alignment. Then at
50 and 150 miles you want to re-torque and re-tighten
all of your nuts and bolts, as well as your U bolts. Now one of the things that we
did before we started this project is we measured both the rear and the front of our
vehicle to check the height, the rear basically stayed the same while on the front
we got an additional 2 1/2 inches, that's going to settle back down
to about 2 inches once we drive this thing around awhile. Then in a future
episode of Motorz we're going to do a spring over axle conversion on our Jeep
and that's going to give us height we want on Project Blue Dog. Now I want to thank
SkyJacker and also the Sears Blue Tool Crew for all the tools that they've provided for
this episode. For more information on all that stuff as well watching more
episodes of Motorz, just head on over to our website. We'll catch you next week on
Motorz.