waterboy222

I have a '13 10A JKU with the 4" Rough Country lift on it. In 28k miles I'm on my 3rd set of shocks. I assumed it was because of trips to Moab, TAT and Arkansas wearing them out and carrying too much weight. I got an error message on the dash on Friday showing the skid control error. Poked my head under the jeep and found the right rear speed sensor wire smashed up and dangling. Decided to pull the wheel off and discovered some very serious issues with my lift and not sure where to start.

1.) Most noticeably is the coil springs are not inline, they are flat on the axle then have a forward arch to the body mount.
2.) The bottom of the shock tube is coming into contact with the rear sway bar attachment point when flexed.
3.) Upper link on the sway bar mount is coming into contact with the upper trailing arm axle mount.
4.) Lower attachment link on the sway bar is coming into contact with the rear track bar surface.
5.) Rear tires are hitting the rear portion of the stock fenders when flexing. Both rear fenders have been destroyed. I assumed it was from too much weight over the rear axle (I overpack religiously)
It appears to me that the axle needs to be rotated forward (counterclockwise) to correct these issues. I pulled the owners manual for the lift and checked the measurements of the trailing arms, assuming they were set incorrectly. I hear everyone saying they have to trim front pinch welds and skids to run 35"+ tires and mine is nowhere near touching that area, the rear tires hit the rear fender flares before anything else.

So now I'm not sure what to do since all the measurements I can find appear to be correct. I don't want to shorten the trailing arms and find out I'm pushed too far into the driveshaft or something. The dealer that installed the lift has told me to go fly a kite (in not so many words) since I should have said something 3 years ago when they did it. And even though I've not done anything to the lift they claim it was correct when it left their shop.

One buddy mentioned that I needed to have angled shims installed under the rear springs, which would kind of make sense for the coil spring arch but wouldn't fix the other 4 issues.

Can I get someone that knows this stuff better than I do to make some recommendations?

Jonathan_JK

Rough country is great for trucks that mall crawl that's about it. I have their quick discos and spring wedges that's it.

Your rear sway at links are toast. Spring bowing is outrageous. I don't even know if spring wedges will help. You need some adjustable control arms and rough county shocks are crap they blow out so easy.

I say 86 the RC lift and start over. Also with 4" of lift your going to need some expandable drive shafts like Tom woods or Adams.

waterboy222

I was hoping for a little less expensive alternative than to throw it away and start over again.. The RC lift does have adjustable trailing arms. I'm wondering if the measurements they list for setting them are incorrect. 18 3/4" eye to eye on the top and 20 1/2" eye to eye on the bottom..

Invest2m4

You have a lot of "not right" going on there. It is hard to tell what is due to the poor quality of Rough Country and what has to do with install and improper adjustment. Some of that looks like install or adjustment issues.

The coils being bowed is normal and that happens when you add lift. The swar bar link is a stock rear link and clearly something is not right with how it is installed. Almost looks like your axles is too far forward, but I don't see how that could be.

Rough Country shocks are extremely low quality. They aren't going to last long. That said, if you are over compressing them due to not having enough bump stop, that is likely the cause.

It is interesting to see a near $50k JK running the cheapest lift money can buy. A not so perfect relationship between the top end and the bottom end.

Invest2m4

Looked closer. Your rear axle problem appears to be due to the axle being way too far back and/or over rotated. That is why the sway bar link and shocks are jammed into the axle and why the coils are so bowed. The setup on that is a mess.

waterboy222

I think the axle is too far back, not too far forward.. If the entire axle came forward a 1/2", it would fix everything but the coil spring arch.. But the measurements for the trailing arms match what is in the installation manual..

waterboy222

So could this issue be fixed by removing the trailing arms, threading the heim joints in a little further and re-installing?

agentjohnson

Your control arm measurement should be from center of the eye to center. Make sure you aren't taking end to end measurements. That could easily shorten you by an inch or more, causing the weird axle shift.

waterboy222

Yes, both measurements I took are from the center of each bolt head...

Invest2m4

Ignore what the manual says. Every Jeep is different.

You are going to have some amount of coil bow no matter what and that is fine, it doesn't hurt anything or change ride quality.

In terms of the angle of the axle, it depends on if you have a stock or aftermarket drive shaft. If stock, you want the pinion to be the same angle as the t-case (not pointing at the t-case). It should be around 7 degrees or so.

I'd start there and then see how it looks. After that, move the axle forward. Arms should be around 20.5" lower and 18.5" upper, or a little less. Are you sure you are correctly measuring them? eye-eye (center of bolt to center of bolt)?