Hey All!
Ok First up - I am not your father, your lawyer, your teacher or your doctor. If you attempt to follow in my footsteps and make a royal mess of it, damaging your vehicle, yourself, or someone else in the process, well, tough luck, maybe you shouldnt have been reading this. If you dont have the mechanical knowledge, tools or time to take care and do everything properly... DONT DO IT!
People who want to say "body lifts are bad blah blah blah, i had a friends friends dogs owners brother have one that went through the floor of his chevy truck etc" please go start your own thread. I have done many body lifts and the only one i ever had issues with was a few cracked poly body lift mounts after I rolled my SOA HJ60 3 times down a sand dune at Fraser Island. After that though, i wasnt really worried about my broken body mounts.
So, lets get to it...
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[SIZE="5"]FJ Cruiser Body Lift...[/SIZE]
Why a body lift? I needed a little more clearance - my tires catch on my flares/body instead of moving into my wheel wells.
Aesthetics Anyhting attached to the frame - bumpers, sliders, etc will be seperated from the body. Some of these can be re-aligned by re drilling or new mounts, some cant. There will be a gape between the body and the frame the same as the body blocks you install, but this can be hidden with gap guards and inner well liners.
Manual and xfer gear sticks will be lowered the respective heiht of the lift. Auto sticks are OK.
The radiator needs to be lowerd (or you can cut the shroud, but lowering the radiator is easier)
The steering shaft needs to be extended.
You may have differnt accessories etc that could become pulled tight or broke. As you lift the body - keep an eye out for anything being pulled tight and STOP if necessary - however never stick your hand between the body and frame unless it is safe to do so (duh)
Stuff needed The body lift kit, tools (sockets, wrenches and a hammer) and at least one friend.
I did some research through
FJ Cruiser Forums, and
Toyota120.com and the same name kept coming up time and time again - Roger Brown at
4Crawler Off Road. A few emails exchanged and I had ordered a 1.25" UHMW body lift kit for myself, and a 1.5" UHMW body lift kit for a friend.
Both kits included -
8 x Ultimate Body Lift Blocks
Heavy duty hardware
Steering shaft spacer
Radiator drop brackets
We recieved the kit from Roger in perfect condition and everything was there, so I highly recommend 4Crawler for your body lift needs.
[SIZE="5"]The Install[/SIZE]
We put Glens truck in the garage.
It looked like this to start with
The first step was to find all the body mount loactions, and loosen all the bolts. There is 8 in total, the front ones are located behind the headlight support, inside little recesses in fornt of the front wheel wells. The photos are of the drivers side ones, the passengers side is just mirrored.
The second is inside the vehicle, close to the firewall. Remove the door sills, foot rest (drivers side) plastic nut and the kickpanels. Pull the floor covering up and you will expose a rubber grommet about 2in diameter. pul it out and it will expose the top ofthe body mount bolt.
The 3rd one is next to the rear seat. Fold the base of the seat up against the fornt seats, and from where the child restraint bolt is, pull your floor covering out from under the plastic side trim. The grommet and bolt hole wil be exposed in the corner of the floor.
The last one is accessible from behind the cargo area trim. Remove your jack/tools cover and you will see the grommet in there. The passenger side is as easy as removing the inverter trim and it is behind that.
Loosen all the nuts, dont take them off at this stage.
Next take the radiator trim and shroud off the radiator. The trim is removed by the 7 clips.
Also take the shroud off, by 5 10mm bolts ( 3 on the overflow bottle, 2 on the radiator shroud.) The shroud is held in the bottom by clips, pull it up to dislodge it and lay it against the motor
At this stage you will also need to remove the front bumper and grille.
Stock bumper removal instructions are here
For aftermarket bumpers, consult your user manual
For stock bumper-ees, you will need to remove the stell brace behind the front bumper ( 4 14mm nuts on both sides of the frame) and re-install this 1 set of holes up to align the bumper with the body on your lift.
Next loosen the steering column slip joint located in the engine bay underneath the brake master cyl, accessible via the rubber sheet-stuff in the drivers side front wheel well. Lossen both bolts located here.
Climb inside the drivers foot well, and pull the black plastic steering column shroud of as well (4 plastic nuts). THis will expose the steering rag joint. Take out both 12mm bolts with nuts on them (do not touch the studs) and slide the longer botls in that were supplied with the steering extension - and do the nuts up a couple of threads. This will allow the steering joint to seperate as you lift the vehicle without the steering wheel coming of center.
If you have a Man-A-Fre auxillary tank, you will need to pull the filler neck inspection cover off (Rr drivers side wheel well) and loosen the hose clamps that hold the fill neck rubber hosing to the fill neck. This will allow it to slide as you jack the body up.
Now your ready to start lifting the body. One side at a time to avoid anything shifting, take the nuts completely off the bolts.
Theres a few ways you can do this part, but the most easy and successful i have done is by using a scissor style jack ontop of your tire with a block off wood to spread the weight over the wheel well.
Each wheel you lift from gives you access to 2 body mounts eg. Front Drivers side you can get the front ds mount and the 2nd drivers mount. Back drivers side you can access the 3rd ds mount and the rear one.
Crank the jack until you can slide a block in between the vehicle body and the existing factory rubber mounts. Pop the bolt out and slide the block in, then drop the new bolt (w/ new washer on top side) through and with the existing washer and a new bolt tighten her up.
Not the best pic but it should look like
T <- New Bolt
0 <- New washer
----- <- Floor
I <-Body lift block
8 <-existing top rubber body mount
----- <- frame mount
8 <- existing bottom rubber body mount
0 <- existing washer
Q <- new lock nut
The front two mounts have shorter bolts then the back 6 - dont get them mixed up (i did!)
Now carry out this same procedure for the remaining 3 mounts per side.. Jack up, slide new blocks in, jack down, jack up.. etc.
Once you have completed one side, finger tightn the nuts you just installed, and head over to the other side where you will copy the same thing you just did.
Once both sides are completed, torque all nuts to 50ft-lb and you have just installed your new body lift!
Now its time to re-install everything.
The Steering column should have spereated and you will be able to slide the steering column spacer between the rag joint and the flange.
Tighten it good and then proceed to the steering slip joint at the firewall which you loosened earlier and tighten it back up.
You can now reinstall all your interior.
The radiator drop brackets are installed by removing the 4 12mm bolts that support the radiator from the front with the grille removed
TOP
BOTTOM
Slide the drop brackets in so the hex bolt goes through the rubber mount and the stud through the original support hole. When you tightn them, you may have interference issues with a nut located on the front bib panel. If you do, you can cut it off or install a spacer on the stud to stop you plastic radiator hitting the nut.
Tighten these support brackets and reinstall your fan shroud and overflowe bottle, and double check to make sure your fan doesnt hit your radiator, or shroud.
After you have completed the radiator drop you can re-install your bumper. The stock bumper will align perfectly if you lifted the bumper crossmember as mentioned above.
Double check EVERYTHING!!! I had 1.25 on my truck and everything was ok, except the main tank fill hose and come undont from the fil neck. For some reason the clamp wasnt tight.
Glens PS line from the resorvoir was getting tight with his 1.5in lift so we replaced it. The gas tank skid also has a ground strap on it that is too stretched with a body lift and will need to be modified.
We left our rear bumpers at stock height which left a gap in the plastic corner peice, but both of us dont really care about that and I will figure something out for it furthur down the road.
Both of us were also happy with the slider gap, means we can use our MAF sliders as steps and brings them off the body.
Front bumpers are both stock for now, and the body lifts will be accomodated when we get front bars.
The xfer gear lever is low, and my TT gear know hits the plastic center console in 4L, but glens doesnt (he has the standard gear knob)
We did these lifts on Saturday and have ben driving the trucks with no problems since.
The finished product
Glenns Before
Glenns After (1.5in)
Mine Before
Mine After (1.25in)
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Sorry if my instructions are a bit confusing or vague, i didnt realise this write up would take so long and i'm supposed to be working so i had to hurry through it!
If you have any questions just shoot me a pm.
Oh - and doing the body lift may be boring for some!
11 chicken necks installed to date
Linear Mode
