Crossbred Body Lift Kit/Rear diff protector Review (Brumby)

[B00sting]

First of all the kit looks good. Nice solid construction. This isn't really a tech installation guide, rather a general review of the kit and problems we encountered.

The instructions consist of a sheet of paper with each piece pictured and labelled where it's supposed to go. That's it. I wouldn't of minded another piece of paper with a brief summary of installation instructions, but then again if you can't figure out a body lift you probably shouldn't work on your car.

We started with the rear, I had read a thread someone else put up just to get a brief idea of what was required beforehand. First of all, I don't believe that any of the bolts we undid (except maybe the front struts) have being undone since the car was fricken made! The bolts/nuts were unbelievably tight! Luckily we had 2 good socket sets so both of us could be working on a side at a time, we had our own breaker bars etc.

The drivers side rear diff mount bracket (having a mind blank here, wasn't the torsion bar or shocky section) was where things started to go wrong. One of the nuts that are tack welded inside the chassis rail broke off (inside the chassis rail!) What a pain in the ass. Bear in mind we were having to working these bolts back and forth and trying to get inox into the bastards at the same time! We had to drill out a 32mm hole into the chassis rail to remove the bolt/nut, tack weld a replacement in then temporarily fill the hole with a rubber plug from a firewall until we weld it up and grind it back properly.

We also had to bend the fuel tank lip on the drivers side to get the bar to fit, not a big deal. And make sure you take note of which way the moustache bar mounts go on, I accidentally put the passenger one on backwards lol, it didn't work as the bolt holes are offset so you couldn't locate the moustache bar back in!:p

The rest of the rear section went ok, except for everything being super tight and taking 15 times longer than it should so we didn't break anymore bolts!

Moving on to the front, things went more smoothly, the bolts were still really damn tight but we had no problems. We used the trick of cutting the little tab on top of the brake lines and bending it to get the brake lines off the struts, and not having to disconnect and thus bleed the brakes. At full extension the brake lines are very tight on the front and rears, they will be replaced at some point soon.

The radius arm bolts were a little tricky to line up compared to others. I don't know if we did something wrong, but we ended up running a ratchet strap from the torsion bar to the radius arm and pulling it just a tad to line up the bolt holes easier.

One thing that did annoy me a fair bit, the bolt heads on some of the kit are really stupid sizes. Some of the bolt heads were 16mm and 18mm. I don't know about anyone else but this seems a little strange, who the hell uses these sizes? It was by chance that out newest socket kit actually had these sizes in them! And another thing that was annoying was the bolt heads were actually different sizes on the radius arm bolts, even though the thread pitch/bolt length etc was the same for each bolt? A small but annoying thing. I can't remember (already) exactly which bolts were odd sizes as it was very late but some definetely were.

The steering extension went on ok, and once we had breaker bar tensioned everything we dropped it down. Oh I also fitted the rear diff protector.

It looked good, I started it up and went to select reverse. no go! reverse would not select at all. I did some searching on the forum and found out its due to the selector needing to be modified slightly (bent) so it doesn't foul on the 4WD shaft. To temporarily fix it I pulled off the gearstick cover, centre console etc and tightened up the bolt/nut on the end of the selector shaft as tight as I could. I can now select reverse but it's a bit dodgy. Since I'm changing gearboxes I don't care, but I would want to modify it if I was keeping the engine/box stock!

The high/low selector is also right up against the transmission tunnel, it need to be bashed in a bit. But again, I won't bother at this stage.

So after sorting this out I backed out and drove down the street, whats that grinding noise????? I traced it to the rear and realised that it was the tailshaft hitting the rear diff protector! What an idiot, I was that tired when I fitted it that I didn't check to make sure it wasn't fouling, as you can move it a very small amount in the slotted holes. So I undid the four bolts and had that problem fixed in about 5 minutes. But anyone reading this and planning to fit the same bit should take note of my error!

I then drove around 150kms and didn't have any problems. The handling is different, but not by that much. I only have the 13" stockies on at the moment so it looks funny. I will check all the bolts this weekend after a week of driving.

The rod from the firewall to the engine is also really tight, and I'm unsure if it needs to be lengthened or not, I haven't read of anyone else having this problem... But I had to leave out one of the washers to get it to fit.

Overall a good kit that requires you to do minor mods to make it work.

[rtcb65]

First of all the kit looks good. Nice solid construction. This isn't really a tech installation guide, rather a general review of the kit and problems we encountered.

The instructions consist of a sheet of paper with each piece pictured and labelled where it's supposed to go. That's it. I wouldn't of minded another piece of paper with a brief summary of installation instructions, but then again if you can't figure out a body lift you probably shouldn't work on your car.

We started with the rear, I had read a thread someone else put up just to get a brief idea of what was required beforehand. First of all, I don't believe that any of the bolts we undid (except maybe the front struts) have being undone since the car was fricken made! The bolts/nuts were unbelievably tight! Luckily we had 2 good socket sets so both of us could be working on a side at a time, we had our own breaker bars etc.

The drivers side rear diff mount bracket (having a mind blank here, wasn't the torsion bar or shocky section) was where things started to go wrong. One of the nuts that are tack welded inside the chassis rail broke off (inside the chassis rail!) What a pain in the ass. Bear in mind we were having to working these bolts back and forth and trying to get inox into the bastards at the same time! We had to drill out a 32mm hole into the chassis rail to remove the bolt/nut, tack weld a replacement in then temporarily fill the hole with a rubber plug from a firewall until we weld it up and grind it back properly.

We also had to bend the fuel tank lip on the drivers side to get the bar to fit, not a big deal. And make sure you take note of which way the moustache bar mounts go on, I accidentally put the passenger one on backwards lol, it didn't work as the bolt holes are offset so you couldn't locate the moustache bar back in!:p

The rest of the rear section went ok, except for everything being super tight and taking 15 times longer than it should so we didn't break anymore bolts!

Moving on to the front, things went more smoothly, the bolts were still really damn tight but we had no problems. We used the trick of cutting the little tab on top of the brake lines and bending it to get the brake lines off the struts, and not having to disconnect and thus bleed the brakes. At full extension the brake lines are very tight on the front and rears, they will be replaced at some point soon.

The radius arm bolts were a little tricky to line up compared to others. I don't know if we did something wrong, but we ended up running a ratchet strap from the torsion bar to the radius arm and pulling it just a tad to line up the bolt holes easier.

One thing that did annoy me a fair bit, the bolt heads on some of the kit are really stupid sizes. Some of the bolt heads were 16mm and 18mm. I don't know about anyone else but this seems a little strange, who the hell uses these sizes? It was by chance that out newest socket kit actually had these sizes in them! And another thing that was annoying was the bolt heads were actually different sizes on the radius arm bolts, even though the thread pitch/bolt length etc was the same for each bolt? A small but annoying thing. I can't remember (already) exactly which bolts were odd sizes as it was very late but some definetely were.

The steering extension went on ok, and once we had breaker bar tensioned everything we dropped it down. Oh I also fitted the rear diff protector.

It looked good, I started it up and went to select reverse. no go! reverse would not select at all. I did some searching on the forum and found out its due to the selector needing to be modified slightly (bent) so it doesn't foul on the 4WD shaft. To temporarily fix it I pulled off the gearstick cover, centre console etc and tightened up the bolt/nut on the end of the selector shaft as tight as I could. I can now select reverse but it's a bit dodgy. Since I'm changing gearboxes I don't care, but I would want to modify it if I was keeping the engine/box stock!

The high/low selector is also right up against the transmission tunnel, it need to be bashed in a bit. But again, I won't bother at this stage.

So after sorting this out I backed out and drove down the street, whats that grinding noise????? I traced it to the rear and realised that it was the tailshaft hitting the rear diff protector! What an idiot, I was that tired when I fitted it that I didn't check to make sure it wasn't fouling, as you can move it a very small amount in the slotted holes. So I undid the four bolts and had that problem fixed in about 5 minutes. But anyone reading this and planning to fit the same bit should take note of my error!

I then drove around 150kms and didn't have any problems. The handling is different, but not by that much. I only have the 13" stockies on at the moment so it looks funny. I will check all the bolts this weekend after a week of driving.

The rod from the firewall to the engine is also really tight, and I'm unsure if it needs to be lengthened or not, I haven't read of anyone else having this problem... But I had to leave out one of the washers to get it to fit.

Overall a good kit that requires you to do minor mods to make it work.

I agree, A very good kit. I also agree with what you said about working out where it all goes. If some one cant work out a brumby(M.Y.) kit, they shouldnt be working on a car.With a little common sense , it is easy. As for the bolt heads. It is unusual , But think about it, do you get everything you ask for every time . One thing to keep in mind . All Brumby's ( M.Y.) have not been through the same thing during there life's . So one may be a little more bent in places than other. Repairs to the body's done by different people. So what works on one, fitting the kits , may not be the same as another. Eg, Reverse not being able to be selected, Range leaver anding up near or rubbing .

[revmax]

awsome wright up.
got any photos

[B00sting]

I'll add photos shortly.


Though this thread is now unhelpful to everyone as the c r o s s b r e d is blanked out in the thread title... wtf is with that all of a sudden?

[JKM]

Thanks for the great 'write up. I recently snapped the heads off some bolts in an L series chassis which had also never been touched before I'm sure! So, so frustrating.

Looking forward to the photos.