Rough Country 4.5" Long Arm write-up

[muddeprived]

This is a writeup and product evaluation on Rough Country's new long arm kit. It's pretty fresh on the market so there's not a whole lot of info on it yet. Hopefully this thread sheds some light on it and answers any questions ya'all might have regarding this kit.

The Story:

The jeep was once mine but I handed it over to the lady and I have future plans for a TJ. My goal was to get it riding as nice as possible (caddy-like......YES IT CAN BE DONE ON A JEEP! ) and still be capable if she feels like getting it brown. I knew long arms were the way to go in order to achieve that nice ride quality. We had four options in mind: Frankz's LA's, Trek's, RC's upgrade, or RK 3-link and ended up settling with RC's upgrade. A little later I received some money from stock at my old job and we figured since we have a little more cash that we'd just get the full kit. Yeah...why not? :: Next thing I know I got an order for the 4.5" LA kit through 4wheelingplus.com. (Awesome company to deal with by the way and no this ain't no paid advertisement ) It was backordered for a couple days but I got it within a reasonable amount of time.

Bye bye short-arms forever.......:hi:

The Goodies.....

I went to do some last minute shopping today and came home to see 9 boxes stacked up like a pyramid in front of my door. They all had "Rough Country" labeled on them so I figured it must be for me.

After dragging em upstairs....



Now a smart thing to do with all kits is to inspect all the hardware to make sure everything is there before you start tearing apart your rig. Out came the jeep knife specifically purchased to open boxes containing jeep parts.

Box 1: Brake lines, U-bolts for either 35 or 8.25, sway bar discos, and what appears to be brake line brackets.



Box #2: Coil springs



Box #3: AAL, center pints, and leaf spring clamps. I have no idea how much the AAL nets but I'm guessing 2.5" or so since my kit came with a 2" shackle. I will most likely sell the AAL and hardware cuz I already have 3" OME leaf springs and can use em with the shackles.



Box #4: Transfer case skid plate



Box#5: Adjustable shackles and all hardware. Hmmm these seem very familiar......



Box#6: Double sheer trackbar and drop bracket plus hardware. Something caught my eye when I took it out of the box. I noticed the bushing end was crooked a little. Maybe it was welded on that to compensate for angles...or not. I dunno yet but we'll find out. I will admit that the trackbar could've been made a little more beefier. It's rather small compared to my current JKS setup but if will be just fine for what my gf's driving style.





EDIT: I asked Ron from 4wheelingplus about how the trackbar end hole was tilted and he checked the other trackbars he had in stock and they were the same so I guess this is normal.

[muddeprived]

Box#7: Shocks and mounting hardware plus 4 cool stickers. When I took these out of their individual boxes, the first thing that comes to mind is jenny craig. These babies are FAT! The are much larger than ordinary shock absorbers and look cool as hell. I dig the rubber bumpstop on the shaft...that's neat. NOTE: these are mounted can up.



Box#8: Lower and Upper arms, flex joints, t-case crossmember side brackets, pitman arm, and nutsert. My god these arms are BEEFY.



Box#9: The Crossmember



Included were detailed instructions and part list. Everything was included, no parts were damaged, and all boxes were intact. Nice job gettin the product to me! Parts seem to be very well made and welds are good. The only questionable component in the whole kit were the sway bar discos. I think it relies on a little horizontal ball and socket to handle the vertical forces of the sway bar/axle. I never used this type of setup so I can't really say for sure if it would cause problems so I just gotta wait and see. It'll probably be fine anyways.

Install is tomorrow (sat) and i'll be giving that camera a good workout. Subscribe to see how it goes!

(to be continued)

[4WheelingPlus]

Subscribed

[Voldemort]

God I love new stuff!! Have you sold the other adjustable lowers yet?

[muddeprived]

Originally Posted by bigbadxj

God I love new stuff!! Have you sold the other adjustable lowers yet?

I haven't sold anything yet. Once I get em off, cleaned up, and inspect them then I will post em up for sale and with a price.

[TheWeiss]

Consider me subscribed. I can't wait to see how this works out!

[muddeprived]

I'm still waiting for my new rear springs to show up but here's what goes down when you install it:

My buddy lent me his garage for a couple days. He injured his knee and couldn't assist much so I was on my own.

Pulling in..


My plan was to gut the entire front end, pulling out the axle and giving me more room to work on the t-bar and other parts.

First I had to remove the shocks. The upper bolts are in the engine bay:




Then the lower bolts on the axle are removed and shocks are off:


The kit comes with new SS brake lines for the front and rear but I'm holding that off until spring when I do all the brakes together. So i'm just disconnecting the calipers and hanging em up out of the way:





Next comes the sway bar. The kit includes sway bar disconnects but I'm not sure if I want to use them or not. I'm sticking with the solid links for now. Remove the lower nuts with 18mm socket and upper 4 bolts with 15mm socket:





Driveshaft gotta come off too...

[muddeprived]

I then disconnected the upper arms using 15mm socket and lower arms using 21mm socket:





Two other things to disconnect that I didn't get pictures of are the trackbar axle bolt and pitman arm. Once those are off then the axle slides out:



Next came the trackbar bracket. The two lower bolts are 18mm and uppers are........i forget but I think 18mm too.





bye bye trusty JKS...

[muddeprived]

Now we got this:




The arms came off next using 21mm for the lower and 15mm for the uppers:





Bye bye short arms FOREVER:



Now the fun part is removing the crossmember for the new one to be installed. Place a jack and piece of wood under the tranny pan:



(those blocks are emergency blocks. I had a situation a while ago where the jeep just narrowly missed falling on top of me so i'm quite freaked about that still)

Remove the four tranny mount bolts and 4 framerail bolts:





Bye bye stock crossmember...FOREVER

[muddeprived]

This is where you get excited and start installing the new parts. I started with the crossmember:



Get that under there and secure it temporarily with the four tranny bolts:



Place the side brackets on and bolt em down but do not tighten yet. Mark the holes on the side of the framerail.


Drill both holes using a 17/32 drill bit and then enlarge the REAR HOLE ONLY using 25/32 drill bit. It appeared that I only had to drill the outer frame rail with 25/32 bit and leave the inner frame rail at 17/32 cuz the crush sleeve fits flush with the framerail:



Reinstall the side plate and find those flag nuts included with the kit. The flag nut and bolt are used on the front holes:






Go ahead and bolt it all down but don't tighten fully yet. The crossmember uses the two stock crossmember bolt holes PLUS one hole in front of them that already has a nut welded to the frame. My nuts were rusted up and I couldn't install that bolt until I re-threaded them. I ended up doing that two days later with a 10mm x 1.5 pitch tap and the bolts went right in, no problem.

Now this is where my camera battery light decided to start blinking. I had to choose which pictures to take in order to get some pix of the entire install before the battery died completely.

After you get the crossmember on, you gotta cut off the lower control arm mounts. You can use a plasma torch, cut off wheel, or sawzall. I used a cut off wheel, 4" and 7".

Bye bye CA mounts....FOREVER:



Next comes installing the new arms. Press in the bushings and metal sleeves, bolt on the upper arms to the lower arms and then install it on the crossmember and axle. Lower arm length: 29 3/4 Upper arm Length: 15 1/4"



Now the arms are on and I need to start connecting stuff back onto the axle. I went ahead and installed the trackbar bracket:



and then the drop pitman arm: