[muddeprived]

This is a write-up for Rough Country's control arm drop bracket kit. This lowers the control arm frame mounting points to get your control arms closer to being parallel with the ground. This drastically improves ride quality.

http://www.roughcountry.com/jeep_xj_control_arm_drop.html

I ordered this from Rough Country and got it just a few days later. Fast shipping :thumbsup:

Here's what's included in the kit:

the special sticker:

Everything seems very beefy and I have no fear in this breaking or causing any issues. It is stated on the website that this kit is designed for 4.5"+ lift but I spoke with the customer service and they said it will work with a 4" too. I have 4" coil/spacer setup on it's way but for now I will install this on my current 3.5" lift just to see what it does and if it works at that height. The upgrade to 4" is still planned but for now the 3.5" will remain until i receive the springs.

More of the write-up coming tomorrow. I am starting in the morning after work and hopefully finish by around noon.

 

[Belto]

nice, looking forward to see the write up

 

[firehawk]

I'm curious as to how it effects your ride/handling. I bought the kit earlier this summer to mount up with my 4" lift, but decided to sell it since it didn't seem to improve the LCA angle all that much on my Jeep, and it would have reduced the ground clearance. At least with the Rustys LCA's I'm running.

Looking forward to your writeup.

 

[Mudderoy]

I'm curious as to how it effects your ride/handling. I bought the kit earlier this summer to mount up with my 4" lift, but decided to sell it since it didn't seem to improve the LCA angle all that much on my Jeep, and it would have reduced the ground clearance. At least with the Rustys LCA's I'm running.

Looking forward to your writeup.

Yes, I've been thinking about getting these as well.

 

[muddeprived]

I'm curious as to how it effects your ride/handling. I bought the kit earlier this summer to mount up with my 4" lift, but decided to sell it since it didn't seem to improve the LCA angle all that much on my Jeep, and it would have reduced the ground clearance. At least with the Rustys LCA's I'm running.

Looking forward to your writeup.

with a 4" lift, it should bring your control arms down to the 1" range, almost stock.

 

[elnino]

what arms are you running?

 

[Kyle]

Thanks for the writeup:cheers:

 

[muddeprived]

what arms are you running?

The best arms you can get: stock.

until i break em, they are staying on there.

 

[muddeprived]

I gave up after 3 hours. Thought i could do one side at a time but nope. Have to drop the axle to do it. I'll continue tomorrow cuz i'm tired.

 

[Jeepers Creepers]

Its easier if you had an extra set of hands. I know for my 6.5" lift it made the ride alot better. Im curious how it will do for you.

 

[muddeprived]

Its easier if you had an extra set of hands. I know for my 6.5" lift it made the ride alot better. Im curious how it will do for you.

Well so far i have one side ALMOST done. I can't get the lower control arm to even come close to lining up because i still have the stock arm on the other side. I have to remove both of those to get this side to line up. It seems to be do-able by myself since i use a combination of cargo straps to pull the axle forward and back plus two jacks under the axle. But from what i can see. the arms are perfectly parallel with the ground. Sweeeeeeet.

 

[muddeprived]

Here's a picture of the arms as they look on my 3.5" lift:

First you gotta remove the upper and lower arms, plus take out the caster adjustment shoe:

Upper uses 15mm nut:

Lower uses 21 mm nuts:

Lower arm removed:

Caster adjustment shoe removed. It uses 13mm nuts on the backside of the bracket:

Now it's time to install the bracket using the supplied hardware and crush sleeves:

Installing the inside upper control arm bracket:

Once those are bolted down, but not tightened fully yet, you can put the upper control arm on:

After you get the upper control arm hooked up then you move on to the bottom arm. It took some muscle to move the axle around and get the holes lined up:

Lower Arm installed:

Once you have

You can see the big difference from the before and after picture of the upper control arms. Angles have changed a good bit.

That's all i have done for today. I will update this tomorrow.

 

[elnino]

Well so far i have one side ALMOST done. I can't get the lower control arm to even come close to lining up because i still have the stock arm on the other side. I have to remove both of those to get this side to line up. It seems to be do-able by myself since i use a combination of cargo straps to pull the axle forward and back plus two jacks under the axle. But from what i can see. the arms are perfectly parallel with the ground. Sweeeeeeet.

i had a bad experience with those straps.... just play it safe...

 

[muddeprived]

i had a bad experience with those straps.... just play it safe...

I know what you mean I've been using these straps for years now and had a number of "incidents".....

 

[Jeepers Creepers]

Well so far i have one side ALMOST done. I can't get the lower control arm to even come close to lining up because i still have the stock arm on the other side. I have to remove both of those to get this side to line up. It seems to be do-able by myself since i use a combination of cargo straps to pull the axle forward and back plus two jacks under the axle. But from what i can see. the arms are perfectly parallel with the ground. Sweeeeeeet.

I used cargo straps doing mine. I broke them both so be careful.

 

[elnino]

yeah...i was moving the axle forward with them holding from the stock bumper...it gave up or something and had so much pression it kick the jack stand and almost landed on me...but since the car was so high and the other jackstand was holding it kind of "flex" and it did hit me in my shoulder pretty bad....

and the impact was so hard that the hub broke...

im sure it was about to anyway...there is no way that could of snap it like that...

 

[muddeprived]

I was able to get some more done today. I hooked up 3 of the arms, both uppers and passenger lower but was unable to get the driver's side lower control arm back on because of this:

That's the caster adjustment shoe. One of the bolts decided to snap and halted my progress. I have to wait till tomorrow to get the new one. Can you imagine that little bracket thingie is $60 at the dealership? ridiculous.....:brickwall:

Here are some more pictures of the brackets:

I'll probably the get back support brackets on tomorrow and everything else connected. I did get Rusty's springs on and netted 5" of lift with 1" spacer. I was hoping for 4" but i got more i guess because they are HD springs. I'll update this with final pictures, ride height, and how it rides.

 

[Jeepers Creepers]

Its looking good

 

[lornix]

No worries of dragging them on the rocks? They look like they would work great to smooth out the ride a bit, but a loss of a couple inches of clearance in that spot.

I have the old style Procomp lowers that are curved and gusseted and they both have some serious rock gashes on them. You're gonna have to wheel a bit differently me thinks.

Looking good though ... good writeup!

 

[Kyle]

You do lose clearance, but I have seen them endure some pretty harsh hits.