Greetings and seeking KJ wisdom

[SmoothinWI]

Greetings all, just bought our first KJ, its a 123,00ç mile 07 Liberty Limited. Typical rust, mechanically sound.
Needs ball joints for sure, any guidance on 2 inch lift while doing the suspension work appreciated.
I bought this thing to pull our clean TJ off the roads for winter. I know nothing about it until 2 weeks ago.

 

[DadOSix]

Greetings all, just bought our first KJ, its a 123,00ç mile 07 Liberty Limited. Typical rust, mechanically sound.
Needs ball joints for sure, any guidance on 2 inch lift while doing the suspension work appreciated.
I bought this thing to pull our clean TJ off the roads for winter. I know nothing about it until 2 weeks ago.

If it were me, i would not spend the cash for a lift, since the body is rusty. I have 2 of these. 04 and 06. Neither worthy of a lift imo.

 

[KJowner]

Weld it up first, it doesn't have a chassis so the rust massively affects the strength of the body.

 

[SmoothinWI]

Weld it up first, it doesn't have a chassis so the rust massively affects the strength of the body.

Tell me what you mean by "weld it up".
I bought this thing for a winter beater with a heater. Perhaps I will forget about lifting it and just spray foam the holes with Great Stuff and spray bomb the crap out of it. Spend some money on the brakes and suspension.

 

[lfhoward]

Can you post pics of your KJ? It would be easier to see what kind of structural issues the rust might be causing, if any.

 

[KJowner]

Tell me what you mean by "weld it up".
I bought this thing for a winter beater with a heater. Perhaps I will forget about lifting it and just spray foam the holes with Great Stuff and spray bomb the crap out of it. Spend some money on the brakes and suspension.

I mean the sills etc are structural, if you have major corrosion there it will have lost a lot of strength, they normally rot out there. Spray foam is not a good idea, it holds the water in there and makes it rot faster + it only adds the illusion of strength!
There are new panels available that will sort it out properly and give you a strong safe car that will give you years of winter service.

 

[u2slow]

Ours had some rocker rust (holes), toward the rear, and it is lifted (10 years now). Has not been a problem - it is largely a daily-driver; not an offroad machine. The plastic rocker covers retained moisture and mud over the years. I cut off the rough stuff cleanly. Then used rust converter, primer, and rust paint along the bottom 5" or so. I know there are replacement full-length rockers to weld in, but I think I may form my own weld-in patches instead.

I chose the Teraflex spacer lift years ago. There are now knockoffs of that too

https://teraflex.com/kj-liberty-2-performance-spacer-lift-kit.html

Amazon.ca

 

[KJowner]

The outer rocker is just a thin cover panel, inside is the heavier structural steel, I put some pictures on here of mine when I welded it up, the rust you see outside is tiny compared to the rust inside on the structural stuff, I had new inner sills folded up by a sheet metal shop so I could just chop all the rotten metal out and weld new in.
We have annual inspections so any structural rot take the car off the road.