Mike Montana began the installation by supporting the Jeep from its frame and removing the driver-side upper and lower suspension links. He worked on one corner at a time, and temporarily installed each bracket with the supplied hardware to mark and drill all the extra holes required to properly attach the new brackets.
The boxed frame on a TJ can make it difficult to bolt on new equipment, so Superlift provides a few special fasteners to make the job easier. This plate holds two bolts together that attach the bracket which Montana drilled the frame for in the previous photo. Other hardware tricks can be found in the form of self-tapping bolts and nuts that need no wrenches.
Superlift offers these optional Rockrunner series suspension links that replace the stock pieces and work with most 3- to 6-inch TJ lift kits. Instead of using rod ends that can transmit noise and vibration, these arms use conventional bushings and permit twist through their two-piece design. This is made possible because the arms incorporate a threaded section that allows them to twist without binding. We found their design also helps to dial in proper pinion angles.
Here you can see how the new Rockrunner arms mount in the new drop brackets on the frame and the stock mounts on the axle. To make it easier to bolt the arms in place, Montana recommends you unbolt the track bar and front driveshaft for maximum axle droop.
The Superlift kit includes new adjustable track bars for both the front and rear axles. Set the front track bar length to 3211/42 inches (the rear bar gets set to 3251/48 inches) for starters, but expect to fine-tune the length to center the axle in the vehicle. In most cases it will be easier to bolt in the track bars once the Jeep is back on the ground. A word of caution: We couldn't find any jam nuts included with the kit, so make sure your kit has them and you install them on the rod ends (arrow).
Next Montana installed the new 131/44-inch coil spring spacer (A), urethane compression spacer (B), coil spring (C), lower compression stop (D), new Superlift shock (E), and brake-line drop bracket (F). We left out the original coil isolator that would go between "A" and "C" because it was too worn, but to get the full 6 inches of lift you'll need to use it up front. With the driver side done you can now move on to the passenger side.
The rear suspension goes together much like the front with new drop-down brackets that are indexed off of the original suspension attachment points. Be sure to install the included sleeves (arrows) to keep the factory frame brackets from crushing when you bolt in the new parts.
A lot of time and research went into developing this kit, and it shows with subtle touches like the lower rear shock mount extensions. Twin-tube gas shocks tend to hit the lower coil bucket on TJs, and these bolt-on brackets extend the shock mounts away from the axle to eliminate this problem. Tri-County Gear has a few TJ tricks too, and added its $50 rear housing brace that ties the lower track bar mount to the differential housing. This reinforcement keeps the mount from getting ripped off the axletube during off-road use.
Just when we thought there was nothing new in the world of sway-bar disconnects, Superlift sent us these optional quick disconnect links to try on the TJ. The simple design of the links lets you screw them together for road duty and unscrew them for trail work. They should be easier to reconnect than typical quick disconnects because the threaded portion does all the alignment work for you.