Rubicon Express Longarm installation for JK Wrangler

12/05/06

Here is the pile of parts you will get when the UPS guy arrives, its alot! I was like a kid in a candy store when this showed up. The following article will show the installation of the RE longarm into 2 different 2 door JK's. One installation was done with leaving the factory brackets on, and the other one we cut the control arm brackets off. It can be done either way with this kit. We started off by replacing the factory transmission crossmember with the new one supplied in the kit. The front radius arms will attach to this crossmember. on one of the installs we needed to fab a new tranny mount for the 545RFE tranny behind the 5.7 hemi.--

Dan

After the crossmember is installed the job gets downright fun. After setting the longarms to the required length, just bolt them in. If you plan on removing the factory control arm mounts, do that before putting the arms in. We used a torch, a sawzall, a plasma cutter and a cutoff wheel and they all did the job fine. You might want to leave the factory mounts on if you plan on taking the lift out someday and want to keep it. But if you do cut them off take your time and do a nice job.

Bolting on the new arms was easy. The rest of the front end items install just like a TJ so nothing tough here. All parts fit just like they are supposed too. Front and rear brakelines are put in, front and rear swaybar links, pitman arm, front and rear track bar brackets all bolt right in.

Next we move onto the rear control arms. You will need to remove the fuel tank in order to install the passenger side rear mount. The fuel tank on a JK removes quite easily. I would suggest you put the tank back in before installing the right rear arm, as clearance to that arm gets a little close trying to push the tank back in after the fact. The only drilling that needs to be done on this kit is for these rear control arm mounts. After these mounts are in simply bolt the kit components in ,bleed the brakes and put on the bigger tires. We installed a 3" and 4" longarm from RE and was pleased with the performance of both kits. One of the kits was installed along with a 5.7 hemi swap and the radius arms have withstood the abuse of the 5.7 hemi also. The amount of articulation with this kit is crazy. RE is planning on having these kits ready by mid January.