lining up rails for install

so I picked up a set of AJ's 3/16 super square rockrails and I'll be installing them in the next couple days. Really impressed with them! We see alot of road salt here so I went ahead and had them rhino lined.

I lined one of them up and it is a little cockeyed. It's not going to quite line up, off by like 3/4" or so, so I was thinking about using my floorjack to press them up against the body.

Then I started thinking about just getting my jack stands under the mounting brackets inside the pinch seam. Not enough to get wheels off the ground, but that would tweak the rail in there as tight as possible.

Anyone see a problem with doing it this way? Only problem I see is that they will be under load/tension once installed.

u cant bend them while they are off?

My rails needed a little "help" to get tight to the pinch seam. Every XJ is going to be a little different, depending on how you tweaked the unibody. I don't see anything wrong with massaging the installation a little. I pushed mine up and close with a floor jack.

X2

RedHeapOjeep said:

My rails needed a little "help" to get tight to the pinch seam. Every XJ is going to be a little different, depending on how you tweaked the unibody. I don't see anything wrong with massaging the installation a little. I pushed mine up and close with a floor jack.

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jeepdude10000 said:

u cant bend them while they are off?

Click to expand...

I just don't really know how I'd do it. Twisting them isn't so easy, only thing I could think of handy was the weight of the xj.

I know this wasn't rocket science, I just wanted to hear that someone else has tried this out and worked for them.

Thanks!

Josh

I had to massage mine up into place, they got close enough for my spec....one thing i did have to do was notch the pinch seam for the legs, they were hanging up and not letting the rail get close enough to the jeep. After doing this though, you may hear some "popping" sounds as the rails adjust to your fitting when you drive over the first speed bump or something.

Thanks!