After only 7 months of having the hockey pucks on the Jeep they are obviously starting to break down. I don't know if this is the result of living in Northern Utah with fairly extreme temperature fluctuations between seasons or all the salt we get to see on the road in the winter... regardless, they were looking scary enough that I decided to change them out for a real body lift in June 2003.

If you decide to do the hockey pucks, be VERY careful about bolt length, there is not much room for error. I took the carpet up last week and found that my bolts were too long and came through the bottom of the tub and dented it up :-(

 

I have replaced the hockey pucks with the Daystar Poly lift and am very impressed with the quality and components of the lift. A couple of things that you get with the kit is extended grill supports by the radiator, and shifter drop bracket (I won't be using) something that I was missing with the pucks.

I will probably be replacing the Daystar Poly motor mounts with Mountain Offroad's torsion rubber lift mounts. It's not too big of a deal, but I do get more engine vibration at idle than I ever did with the stock mounts. I'd suggest either getting the blocks that go under the stock mounts to lift your motor an inch or just go all the way and get the rubber lifted mounts.

Here's my thoughts: I really like the idea of putting a flat skid under my Jeep, probably something like this one produced by Goferit Offroad. But, in order to do something like that, you have to make some changes to stock configuration... mainly:

• At least 1" Body lift
• Slip Yoke Eliminator
• New drive shaft
• Adjustable Control arms

Since most of these things cost a substantial amount of money, I'm taking it in baby steps and I was itching to do something over thanksgiving weekend. I've read quite a bit on the web about the pros and cons of using hockey pucks, but this is kind of a temporary thing and I'll probably take them off sometime next year and go with a Daystar poly body mount/lift kit (link is to cheapest place I've found them so far).

Costs:

• Daystar 1" Poly Motor mount lift: $65 - Mt. Logan Offroad
• Hockey Pucks - "Puck Pack" (1 dozen): $10 - Gart's Sports
• Grade 8 Bolts and washers: ~$14 - Lowe's
• Time: About 3.5 hours with Ryan helping me

My little brother Ryan was kind enough to help me out for the afternoon, Thanks Ryan!

Drilling out the holes in the pucks.

Motor Mounts went it pretty easily, it got pretty tight on one of the sides, but we took it slow and use a little leverage once and a while and got the nuts all tight.

Make sure you loosen the fan shroud so you don't make the same mistake I did. We were jacking up the motor and had the body mounts loose and it was raising the body too, wasn't long before we heard a crack and felt the body shift back down to the mounts :-(

I'm just going to epoxy the plastic and put a couple of frankenstein looking wire stitches on it.

Another shot of the Motor mount, passenger side.

Driver's side hockey pucks. Never mind the Moab dirt, it's supposed to be there :)

Shot from the rear.

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