After mounting a heavy duty winch on my front bumper, my front end was about 1/4" lower than stock. After a couple of months passed by, the jouncing of the suspension had rendered it a full 3/4" lower than it had been before the winch. Remove the winch? BLASPHEMY! Instead, I took the recommendation of the experts and installed 3/4" Daystar Coil Spacers on my front springs to bring it back to stock. This project is no harder than anything else on this site, and the photos are from my very first outing installing something like this.

What Are Coil Spacers?

Coil Spacers are polyurethane discs that sit on top of your springs to lift the suspension up by some amount to create lift on the cheap. You can safely put up to 2" tall spacers on top of your springs all the way around to get 2" of lift to clear bigger tires, as reported in the Novice Guide to Bigger Wheels, but this project was about restoring only the front end to stock height.

Here is a picture of the coil spacers sitting on top of my red springs. While doing this job, I painted my springs red to match the spacers. Why? Because I like the look of colorful springs, and also just to leave a mark saying I had been there and done the job well.

Rubicon Springs

Some people try to restore their stock height by getting some stock Rubicon springs, which they believe are taller than Wrangler springs, and installing them up front. But Rubicon springs are not taller than Wrangler springs. They are different in that they have a higher spring rate, and therefore are stiffer and less likely to sag down as far. I preferred the spacer solution because it cost $40 for the spacers, and I didn't have to buy more springs.

Overview

This project is pretty simple, even though it seems like it will be really difficult. We will put the Jeep on stands, remove the front wheels, disconnect the anti-swaybar links, disconnect the bottom of the shock absorbers, disconnect the track bar, jack up one side to make the other droop, pull out the spring, remove the bumpstop cup, put on the spacer, and then put the cup back on. Then we'll make the other side droop, pull out the spring, put in the spacer, and put everything back together again. Take the Jeep off of stands, and you are done. It really isn't that difficult.

This entire job took me about 4 hours because I had no clue what I was doing. It should take someone more experienced than myself less time.

Required Tools

Torque Wrench. You'll need this to put everything back together and screw everything down to the right tightness.

X Wrench. You will need an X-wrench to remove your wheels. I use the 3/4" end on mine to remove lug nuts. Remember to loosen lug nuts while the wheels sit on the ground, not after you have jacked it up, and then finish removing them after the wheels are off the ground. Technically the lug nuts are 19mm, but 3/4" has worked for me so far.

Breaker bar. You don't have to use an X-wrench. You could just get a 1/2" 19mm socket and put it on your big breaker bar, but it won't spin around quickly like your X-wrench will.

Wheel Blocks. Any time you are jacking up your Jeep, you will need to use some sort of blocks on the front and back of the tires that will stay on the ground to prevent the Jeep from rolling away from you.

15mm socket. You will need a 15mm socket for your breaker bar and then later your torque wrench to disconnect the trackbar from the axle. You will also use this for the bumpstop retaining cup.

13mm socket. The bottom of the shock absorbers are held by two bolts. One side is a hex nut, and the other is the hex head of the bolt. These are pesky to remove because it involves contortions to get at them and hold one end while you spin the other with the socket.

18mm closed end wrench. This is for the nut on the bolts that hold the anti-swaybar (stabilizer bar) links to the axle. You will put this over the hex nut and hold it in place with it while you turn the T55 torx head to unscrew it.

T55 Torx Bit. The bolts that hold the bottom of the anti-sway bar (stabilizer bar) links on the axle. There is no explaining why here and there the Jeep uses metric bolts and then imperial measurements, or why some things are held by hex bolts and others by torx bolts.

Coil Spacers. I purchased some Daystar coil spacers online for about $40.

WD-40. This is the secret to removing and installing the bump stops easily.

Jack and Jack Stands. This operation requires a floor jack and jack stands. I prefer 6 ton stands at least, as they have a 4x wider base than a 3 ton jack stand, and I am concerned about the possibility of my Jeep coming off of the stands and squishing me. I guess it would only hurt for a second, but my family would miss me.

Bolt Size & Torque Specifications

Bolt	Size	Torque
Wheel Lug Nuts	19mm	90-100 ft-lb all nuts on each wheel must be exact same amount of torque
Anti-Sway Bar Links Bottom Bolt	T55 Torx bolt & 18mm hex nut	70 ft-lb
Shock Absorber Bottom Bolts	13mm hex bolt	28 NM or 250 in-lb or 21 ft-lb
Trackbar Bottom Bolt	15mm Hex Bolt	55 ft-lb
Bumpstop Retainer Cup	15mm Hex Bolt	Hand tighten

OK, you have what you need. Here we go!

Step by Step Coil Spacer Installation

Keep in mind that these directions are for a 2004 TJ Wrangler, the only model of Jeep I have ever owned. Your model will be a little different perhaps if it is an 2002 and earlier or a 2007 and later.

1. Turn off the Jeep, place transmission in park, and set the parking brake. Then, take some tape and some paper and put labels on your coil springs. Mark one as Driver's side, and the other as Passenger's side. This is critical to your success as you go along.

2. Block the rear wheels

3. Loosen all ten lug nuts on the front wheels.

4. Place the floor jack cup underneath the frame mount for the lower control arm just behind the front wheel. There is a hinge there, and the shape of the mount is just right to help keep it steady. Lift it up, and then place a jackstand underneath the frame rail just behind this mount. Repeat on the other side.

Now your Jeep is jacked up and the wheels are off the ground and can freely spin. Before you get underneath anything, it is time for a Moment of Zen. Look under there and check to see if you have made any of the common mistakes. Are the jackstands settled flatly on the ground? Is this Jeep solidly supported? I usually bump mine a little with my hip to make sure it isn't going to fall off of there the instant I get under there and someone comes out of the house and knocks something into it.

Did you give yourself plenty of room? You don't want to be squeezing between the Jeep and the garage wall 2 feet away. If something did go wrong, you wouldn't have any space to scurry away like a little rat, and the thing could go right through the wall. Did you put it up on level ground? This is very, very important. A slight slant to your driveway makes jacking up the Jeep too dangerous. Find somewhere flat to do this.

Once you have the Jeep up on stands, put the floor jack under the differential, and raise it a little to support it and make it easier to remove stuff without your axle suddenly snapping down on you.

5. Remove the wheels and place them under the frame rails of the Jeep. Possibly a futile gesture, but should something go wrong, here's another layer of safety, and maybe it will slow it down enough to let you escape.

6. Disconnect the anti-sway bar (stabilizer bar) links at the bottom. Use the 18mm closed end wrench around the hex nut, and the use your breaker bar to turn the bolt using a T55 torx bit. Once it is relatively loose, switch everything over to a regular ratchet wrench and things will start moving pretty quickly. Leave the top connected.

There's a picture of my link disconnected. BTW, this is also how you "disconnect" when you are going to go off-roading and want more flex in your axle. These links keep the axle from moving too far up and down on the road for a nice, tight ride on pavement. During this operation, you could try installing quick disconnects by undoing the top bolt and replacing the entire link with something that uses a simple cotter pin to disconnect in the future. I didn't. I like my operations to be simple and limited in scope so that if something goes wrong, I will have less trouble diagnosing any problems. I am not a skilled mechanic, so I KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID (KISS Principle).

7. Remove the two bolts at the bottom of the each shock absorber. These are 13 mm. I used a 13 mm open ended wrench on one end and a 13 mm socket on the other. These were a pain.

Here is a picture of my shocks disconnected from the axle. You can see the two holes on either side where the bolts go.

8. Remove the bottom track bar bolt. This is a 15mm bolt. A similar sized wrench helps on the other side to hold the hex nut in place while you break and then ratchet the bolt out of there.

Here is a picture of my trackbar with the lower bolt disconnected. As you undo this bolt, notice there is a retaining clip of some kind that goes with the bolt to hold the whole thing together. It is imperative that you pay attention to how this is arranged before you let it all fall apart. You can see the clip and the bolt on the floor under the trackbar's lower connection point, which is now hanging out of its mount.

Now you have everything disconnected. This is the interesting part, because you are going to take advantage of the Jeep's own design to remove the coil springs.

9. Lower the floor jack and let the axle droop. Watch your brake lines to ensure they do not become straight. If they are pulled too far, they will tear, and then you need new brake hoses and you have to put in new fluid and bleed them, which is a total pain. So watch them. When I did this job, my brake lines were never in danger, but keep an eye on yours just the same.

10. Put the floor jack under one side of the axle tube and begin jacking it up. Look how the other side starts to go down in response to this. Isn't that neat? The Jeep is surrendering to your will and giving up its springs to you, its master.

11. Remove the coil springs. The side that is lowered down has a poor grip on its coil spring now. Go over there, and remove it. I just pulled mine out and did not require any sort of spring compressor or anything like that. At first I couldn't get it out because the axle was not drooped down enough. So, I put my foot on the top of the axle or some other part that didn't have a hose coming out of it, and I put some weight on it and pushed it down. Then, while I had it opened up, I pulled on the spring and it popped right out.

WARNING: KEEP TRACK OF WHICH SPRING GOES ON WHICH SIDE. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.

Here you can see my axle boosted on one side and drooping on the other.

Many other write ups on this topic recommend that you remove a spring retaining clip as you do this. My 2004 Jeep Wrangler has no spring retaining clip holding the springs in. They just sit on raised platforms without any clips. So I just pulled them out.

Repeat on the other side.

12. Remove the bump stop and then the retaining cup. You have to pull the rubber bump stops out of their little cups to get at the bolt that holds the cup in place. And, you have to remove the cup to slide the spacer over the stalk that holds the bump stop, because the cup is just slightly wider than the hole in the spacer.

To remove the bump stop, I sprayed it with WD40, and it popped out without much effort. Then I put my 15mm socket in there on a ratchet wrench and unscrewed the cup from the stalk. In the picture, you can see the rubber bumpstop in my hand and the retaining cup hanging loose.

13. Put the spacer over the stalk, and reattach the bumpstop retaining cup with its bolt. You only need to hand tighten the retaining cup. Its not crucial that it be torqued. Then spray a little WD40 on the bumpstop and stick it back in there. Repeat on the other side.

Here you can see my little red spacer on the stalk that holds the bumpstop. Once you have done this, it is time for re-assembly.

14. Put the correct coil spring back on the correct side. You did label them like I told you to, right? You didn't mix them up? One of them is shorter than the other one, and your Jeep will look pretty stupid going down the road tilted to one side if you put the wrong coil on the wrong side.

Some people recommend that you don't put the little rubber thing back in until the spring is back on, but I got mine on over the rubber stop without any trouble. I just slid it up into the spacer, pushed down on the axle while the other side was boosted up, and pulled on the spring until it went back onto its raised perch. I recommend that you do the driver's side first, since it is more difficult than the passenger's side for some reason.

15. Repeat on the other side by putting on the other coil spring on the passenger's side. I slid the spring up into the spacer over the bump stop, pushed down on the axle with my foot, and worked the spring around until it sat on the perch.

Now its time to reassemble everything.

16. Put the trackbar back on the axle with its bolt and that little clip that fell off when you removed the bolt. Hey! The holes won't line up! *PANIC* This is not a problem. With some careful floor jack boosting and lowering in the right spot, eventually you can make them line up just right. I boosted the differential up pretty high, then the bolt slid in and the clip went into place without much trouble. Use the 15mm socket and wrench to hold the hex nut still, and torque this baby down to 55 ft-lbs.

17. Boost the axle up on each side to get the shock bottoms to reach their spots on the axles, and then bolt them back on using the 13mm socket and wrench combo. These should be torqued down to 250 inch pounds. Why on earth does the factory service manual give this in inch pounds? As if any torque wrench is really that accurate? 21 ft-lbs should be fine, since 250 inches divided by 12 equals 20.83 ft-lbs. Or, if you are picky, set your torque wrench for 28 Newton Meters.

Boost up the other side and reattach the same way.

18. Reattach the anti-sway bar (stabilizer bar) links. These should be torqued to 70 ft-lbs.

19. Reattach the wheels, remembering to put the lug nuts on finger tight only.

20. Lower the Jeep to the ground.

21. Torque the wheel lug nuts to 90-100 ft-lbs each. All of them must be torqued to the same torque, and you should put torque them in a star pattern as explained in tire rotation.

22. Check your alignment and have it adjusted. Or you can do this yourself. After lifting the front end, your alignment is now hosed. Doing your own alignment is not that hard, though.

All done! While I had my springs out, I cleaned them with ammonia, let them dry, sprayed them with Rustoleum primer, let them dry for an hour, and then a red enamel paint for metal and let them dry. Now my springs are bright red, adding a little color, and also giving me proof that I really did this and pulled it off on the first try all by myself using nothing but internet write ups.

When finished, my Jeep was returned to stock height, plus 1/4". Over time, I will probably lose that 1/4" boost, but that's OK, the goal was to get rid of Winch droop, and this small lift did the job.

And doing this, I am much less afraid now of installing more lift later on. I can now install my own budget boost, if I want. This job was a great confidence builder.

OH NO! What have I done?

I cannot get the bolts to come off. You might try spraying the bolts with PB Blaster, a product that loosens rusted bolts, the night before you do this job, if your Jeep is old and has a lot of rust under there. Mine was only one year old, and these parts were still shiny on mine.

I still can't get the bolts off. Use a big, long breaker bar. The longer the lever, the more power you get from less effort. Also, use a wrench over the hex nut on the other side to keep it still, or the whole thing will just rotate without unscrewing from itself.

I can't get parts to line up to put them back together! Use the floor jack and boost the axle to bring them together. Sometimes you might try boosting this part or that part to get it to work just right. Sometimes it takes more boosting than you think it will.

My Jeep looks crooked now. Label the springs before you begin and put them back on the correct sides. If your Jeep looks crooked, try jouncing it to see if the springs are settled into their perches properly. If not, you can try to force them into the perches by driving over some bumps, or you can reassemble again to get it right.

My directions say unlink the steering tie rod. My instructions said that too. I did it without disconnecting it. I have no idea why you would need to disconnect that bar. It has nothing to do with the axle moving up and down. We disconnected that other stuff so the axle would present the coil springs to us. The tie rod just makes the wheels stay pointed in the same direction.

What is a stabilizer bar? The anti-sway bar is a stabilizer bar. I put both names in to avoid confusion. Hopefully it didn't create confusion instead!

Feeback:

Josh Puente writes:

Just wanted to tell you how helpful your site is! It is the best site I found for installing my spacer lift. I was not 100% sure I could do it but after seeing your writeup I knew I could do it. Thanks.

Online Resources

There is no online resource for a 1 inch lift in the front that I know of. That's why I wrote this one. But I did glean my material from other how-to articles about putting in lifts, and I also followed the instructions that came with my coil spacers, which were specifically geared toward my Jeep.

Front End Alignment. 4x4xplor.com is an awesome resource. Here is how to do your alignment. Look at the pictures carefully. They explain it all, really.