Finally Replaced My Perches

[LostintheForest]

Hey all, it’s been a while, but I felt like sharing that I finally took care of my rear upper perches on my ‘97. Took about 5-ish maybe 6 Hours with some lolly gagging and a run for Fluid Film. My dad helped me a bit, was funny having him as my “Flashlight Boy” after all these years. He did help with a bit of grinding and painting as well, it was a great father-son project at the shop, good way to spend a saturday. My coworkers friend who is one these best welders in the area did the gluing, these things will outlast the rest of the Jeep for sure lol. surprising solid underneath the completely rotted away perches.

I didn’t take many photos but here’s a couple

 

[LostintheForest]

Quick summary of what I had to do to get them done:

Undid and repaired side at a time.
Support the rear differential,

First, I undid the track bar at the passenger side, then the upper arm, shock and link on driver side, lowered the diff and pulled the spring.

Marked center and then hammered off old perch, then used my 4” straight cutoff to get the tabs off the frame, and then a grinder to smooth out.
The worst part is getting the insides of the frame. This required removing the rearmost, second rearmost body mounts, as well as the first pair of tub mounts to lift the body. I put a block of wood on a pole jack and braced the opposite corner to get max body lift without tossing the truck off my 2 post lol.

Then once the frame was “smooth” I positioned the perch, marked around it, and then ground down the frame to bare metal to get good adhesion for the welds.

Once that was done let cool, painted the outside and fluid filmed the inside.
Reassembled, leaving the track bar undone to do the passenger side. This also involved lowering the tail pipe to get clearance for welding.

Good times.

 

[LostintheForest]

Sorry, one last “bump”
Here are the old perches

 

[WV Native]

I really need to do this too. Look forward to more pictures.

 

[LostintheForest]

I’m happy to answer any questions you may have on the process while it’s still fresh in my mind

 

[WV Native]

I’m happy to answer any questions you may have on the process while it’s still fresh in my mind

What brand of coil perches did you purchase?

 

[LostintheForest]

Dead Jeep, I’ll look up a link

Edit: here ya go!

https://deadjeep.com/products/97-06...FSTsGL5-jtZyeSFCuDlC76XRvUkXmLxKHjtp428ckgmHr

Under $160 for the pair and they are very heavy duty

From the description:

Made by our good friends at S & S Engineering out of high quality 3/16 inch steel. These are the thickest and strongest you can buy.