Jeep TJ Rear Trackbar Bracket Install

[TerryMason]

After adding a 2.5" lift to my Jeep Wrangler TJ, I noticed that the ride didn't quite feel right. I would get a bit of bump steer driving down the highway, and things just didn't feel as good as stock. I thought I had addressed everything - new lower control arms and a front trackbar, but after doing a bit of reading I realized that my rear trackbar needed to be lengthened.

Why do you need a longer rear trackbar?

When you lift a Jeep, you end up moving the axles farther away from the frame, which is a good thing, except that the front and rear trackbars connect the frame to the axle, and are not adjustable. On a lifted Jeep the stock trackbar will pull the axle down, and to one side, keeping more tension than necessary on the trackbar. This will cause poor handling, bumpstear, and will fatigue your trackbars.

Most people / companies do address the front trackbar, since the geometry of the front axle is more important (due to steering), however the rear trackbar often gets overlooked. Luckily, there are a few companies that make either longer rear trackbars, adjustable ones, or the route I went, a Trackbar bracket.

The rear trackbar bracket
I went with a Rough Country rear trackbar bracket. At $18 it’s dirt cheap, but is well made.

 

[TerryMason]

Removing the rear trackbar

The first thing that you'll need to do is remove the stock rear trackbar. I put the rear wheels on ramps, just to give me an extra 12 inches to work with. First remove the nut and bolt that connect the rear trackbar to the frame of the Jeep. If your Jeep is lifted there's a good chance that this bolt is under tension, so be very careful when removing it.



Once you get the frame side off, you'll need to remove the axle side. This can be pretty difficult, as the gas tank is right against it, so there isn't enough room to use a socket. I was able to put a wrench on a hex socket in order to remove this.



Once the bolt is out ¼ inch or so, I popped a monkey wrench on it and removed the entire bolt



The rear trackbar fully removed

 

[TerryMason]

Installing the Rough Country rear trackbar bracket

The first part of installing the new bracket is to enlarge the factory holes (the plastic cover that shields the stock rear trackbar mount has two holes in it, you just need to enlarge these holes). The bottom hole is easy to enlarge, but the top can be difficult.

The bottom hole:





Just drill it straight on





The top hole is pretty difficult to get to. I wasn’t able to drill from the top down, but I was able to angle the drill up.





I was able to drill the hole from the bottom up.





Now, you can pop the new bracket into place





The put the crush sleeve in place and feed the stock bolt back through





With the stock bolt in place, you can mount the new hardware in the top and bottom holes. I also bolted up the axle side of the trackbar.





Now just bolt up the frame side




And that’s it. The rear trackbar should be back to good now.