Quick & Easy Jeep Upgrades

Text: Trent Riddle
Photos: Trent Riddle

The Daystar body mounts are 1-inch longer than stock.

First, loosen the body mount bolts on the opposite side, and then remove the bolts on the working side. Then raise the body on that same side with a floor jack, just enough to get the old mounts out and the new ones in.

1. The body mounts are usually easy to remove, unless your Jeep was run in salty conditions and everything is rusted up. If that’s the case, you’re in for a lot of work getting the old bolts out.

2. The factory headed sleeves are removed from the stock body bushings and are reused.

3. Here you see a Daystar body mount in place. It fits like stock.

4. The center of the grill is raised and a new tall mount is installed.

5. This corner bumper on a YJ is very important. If you don’t install them, the fenders are sure to crack over time. The stock units are held on with an internal Torx head fastener. Often these are hard to get out.

6. The rear of your Jeep will not only have two corner body pucks like this, but also two under the body in front of the gas tank.

In part one we wrote about the relaxation, the sense of well being, being at one with the universe, experiencing the ying and yang, in a word, Nirvana, one can often find by taking a few hours to upgrade an item or two on their Jeep. Well, we’ve come up with a few more quick and easy upgrades that you can do in a day or less. The key here is to plan ahead and have the parts and pieces to do the install on hand. Mind you, there is still the possibility of running into unknown wear or damage that would be best to address while you’re already working on the vehicle. For example, when installing new front axles, you’ll have to remove the brakes and wheel hubs. So plan ahead and have the parts on hand to replace the brakes and bearings, if you know they’re in need of service too. Once you’ve completed your upgrade(s) of choice, you’ll find you feel better about your Jeep and maybe about life in general. In other words, to feel your aura, to contemplate your navel, to...

Daystar’s 1-inch Body Lift
Twisting your suspension on the trail will flex your suspension to its limits. Chances are, if you look in your wheel wells, you’ll find a few shiny spots where the tires have rubbed the paint off, when the tires are forced into the inside of the tubs. If you have a severe problem with rubber vs. sheet metal contact, you can even damage the body. Now you could put on extended bump stops, to prevent your larger tires from hitting the tub, but another solution is to move the body up slightly and give your tires more room to move.

Daystar offers Jeep owners a replacement body puck set that raises the body 1-inch over stock. A 1-inch lift will provide more clearance for your stock tires and may even allow you to use a tire slightly taller without the tires rubbing. The nice thing about the Daystar setup is that the polyurethane replacement mounts provide some isolation from road vibrations and are a solid 1-piece design rather than a flimsy plastic puck that is added on top of your stock mounts.

So why only lift the body 1-inch? First off, the more you lift the body, the more trouble you’ll have with brake line lengths, shifter interference, and radiator positioning and more. These troubles are minimal with an inch of body lift.

Also you should be aware that 4 Wheel Parts doesn’t recommend the use of a body lift and suspension lift at the same time. And while you may have seen some Jeeps in this magazine using a body lift in combination with a suspension lift, these have not installed at a 4 Wheel Parts Performance Center.

Lifting the body of your Jeep is simple, and can be done in a day. Your first step is to loosen the body mounts on one side of the Jeep, and then remove the bolts completely from the opposite side body mounts. Next, using a floor jack, lift the body on the side without the bolts just enough to get the old body mounts out and install the longer Daystar mounts. Once one side of the body is raised, you can remove the loosened bolts from the opposite side and then change out those body mounts. The final step is to raise the grill with the new center mount. On YJs and TJs you’ll also need to replace the bump stops at the corners of the grill with the new units from your kit. It’s important to not skip this step, even thought it’s the hardest part of the install. If you don’t have these bumpers in the grill corners, you’ll cause your fenders to crack over time.

The last item you’ll need to address is the radiator position. Daystar recommends dropping the fan shroud down 1-inch to keep the fan in the center of the shroud opening. Some folks we’ve seen have repositioned the entire radiator. The choice is yours on how you do it, but you must re-center the fan or it will hit the shroud. If you don’t find it hitting in the driveway, rest assured, it will the first time you hit the trails.

As a special note, Daystar recommends that you reuse the factory headed sleeve from you old body mounts. On older Jeeps these can be a bear to remove from the bushing. Warming the sleeve slightly with a propane torch sometimes helps loosen the grip of the old rubber on the steel sleeves. Take care to not catch the rubber on fire.

Source: Daystar • 841 South 71st Ave. • Phoenix, AZ 85043 • Daystarweb.com

Tools Required:
1/2-inch drive socket set
3/8-inch drive socket set
Torx socket set

Additional tools we recommend:
WD40

DRIVE IN COMFORT

Have your seats seen better days? If so, consider Pro Comp’s new line of replacement Jeep Seats.

The first step is to remove your seats from the Jeep. The stock seat mounting hardware will be reused with your new seats.

Our original seats where factory high back units (on the left). While they had been re-upholstered the foam and the seat frames where shot.

Our basic Pro Comp seats came disassembled. The first step was to bolt the seat backs onto the seat bases.

The bolts that hold the driver’s seat to the slider rails are metric thread Torx bolts. Special sockets are needed to remove these bolts. In addition, these bolts tend to rust to the seat frame and break when you try to remove them. Have either new factory bolts or socket head cap screws on hand to replace a bolt if you break it.

Our new seats look good and feel great. They are much more comfortable than the stock seats and this is just the basic Jeep replacement seat.

Pro Comp Seat Upgrade
Pro Comp now offers seats for our 4x4s. They can be had in vinyl or with a comfortable fabric facing to keep your backside cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Pro Comp seating is available in a several styles to replace your worn factory seats.

The basic seat is a standard Jeep bucket seat. These are an economical solution to worn or broken factory seats. The deep contoured seats offer a firm, comfortable spring suspension and rugged construction. They are available in the same colors as the factory seats.

The next level of seating is the Pro Comp Factory Style Jeep seat with recliner. This version improves on the basic unit by offering a dual recline mechanism to allow it to function on either the driver or passenger sides.

The top of the line is the Pro Comp — Jeep Super Seat. This one offers unlimited recline positions and adjustable headrest. In addition, it has more side bolstering and improved padding. All Pro Comps use the same mounting hardware and bolts from the original seats.

While we could have opted to show you the top of the line seat being installed, we wanted to be practical. After all, you may be on a budget and the recliner function is useless on CJ5s and flat fenders anyway. Besides, the basic seat is a vast improvement over the stock seats even when they where showroom fresh.

Installation is simple, but you may have one issue to be wary of. The factory seat bolts need to be reused, and the bolts are an odd lot for the slider base seats. These bolts are metric thread, require a Torx socket (yes we said socket) and are prone to breaking when you try to take them out. This is because the bolts rust into the seat bottoms due to water collecting in the factory seat foam. We’d recommend that you get some metric cap screws to use if/when you break the stock bolts while taking the seats off the mounts. You need the small head of a cap screw or those funny Jeep bolts to fit inside the slider rails. Also, spray the stock bolts with WD40 or some other penetrating oil to help in their removal. Other than this one concern with the bolts, the installation of the seats should take under an hour, start to finsh.