Controll arm woes

I am installing a 3 inch rustys lift for a cherokee. I only had one coil compressor so I dissconnected my upper control arms and put the new coils and uncompressed one of them, but left the other one compressed. But now my controll arms are off from their mounting holes. It seems like the diff has rotated foreward. Do I need to go out and get another set of compressors and compress the other coil to get my arms to line up?

if you are doing this job alone i suggest doing one side at a time dropping the lower control arm. thats what works best for me. so pull out the springs a reconnect the uppers. and drop the lower on one side and work it that way. floor jacks and stock bottle jacks help alot with lining up the bolts too. i have never used a coil-compressor with this method.

If you keep one side of arms connected at a time and use a floor-jack and jackstands to compress/droop one end of the axle at a time the mounts will eventually line up. If you really have a hard time still, you can disconnect part of the steering or the trackbar for a little more play.

you usually dissconnect the lower arms and do it one side at a time to replace coils. It's going to be a real bitch getting your upper arms reconnected if you did both at the same time. I'm sure there are multiple other ways (come-a-long, ratchet strap, hydro ram, large pipe wrench on the trackbar mount with a floor jack pushing up on it to rotate the axle up, & etc )to get your upper arms reconnected as it sits but personally I'd take the coils back out, reconnect the upper arms, and install them the normal way by dissconnecteing the LCAs and only doing one side at a time. carefull with those compressors!

You guys beat me to it LOL

rustys told me to dissconnect both, the problem is probably cause I still have one coil uncompressed pushing on the axle. Ill try the other compressor tommorow and pray it works

Ratchet straps are your friend. I generally go from the top of the axle C to the rear spring hanger to pull the top of the axle rearward. You can use them in a number of ways to manipulate an axle to get everything to line up.

An 18" to 24" pipe wrench works best. You can put it anywhere on the tube then put a floor jack under the end of the wrench and start jacking. You can easily rotate the tube 90 degrees if you want. Substantially easier than using straps.

However, if the don't have access to a pipe wrench then straps or a binder are the next best.