Cage Off-Road Ford Bronco Long Arm Lift Kit

Here is our old suspension complete with decades of dirt. While this quad shock set up served its purpose, it simply didn't have anywhere near the amount of flex that the CAGE Off-Road 6.5 kit has.

We began to dismantle our suspension by lifting the truck so that the coils could be removed. The lower coil mount bolts need to be removed as well as the upper coil retaining bracket in order to free the coil spring from the coil bucket.

Once we had our coil springs out, we removed the shocks. Make sure you have your axle on jackstands so that it doesn't move around when you remove your old suspension parts. The truck needs to be lifted independently of the axle so you can get the coils out. Before you begin to loosen anything, note the wheelbase on each side of the truck so you know what to set the wheelbase to when you install your new radius arms.

If you wheel an older Ford with radius arms, you know what these are. Yeah, we hate changing these bushings too! The radius arm clamps are super easy to remove but incredibly difficult to install. Make sure you don't throw away the front half of the radius arm clamp as you will need to reuse this with the new CAGE head units.

Our Bronco was already equipped with a 6-inch suspension lift that used radius arm drop brackets. The drop brackets tie into the transmission cross member and help strengthen the frame. Although you don't need to keep your old radius arm mount, CAGE suggests that you trim your old radius arm mount (in this case our drop bracket) to help reinforce the frame in case the truck sees abusive off-road use. We listened to CAGE and went ahead and cut it; there is really no reason not to, and a die grinder or plasma cutter will make quick work of it.

We clamped up our new dual shock mount by using a two vise grips and a C-clamp to hold the shock mount in place while we marked off and drilled the holes on our frame. That's the great thing about this kit: it's designed with the average off-roader in mind. Not everyone knows how to weld but if you know how to use a tape measure and clamps and you can drill holes, you can install this suspension kit. You will need a 1/2-inch drill bit for all of the holes you will drill into your coil buckets and frame. We found it best to start off with a small drill bit and work our way up to bigger drill bits.

Here is our new track bar drop bracket being installed. Obviously the old shock towers are not used with this kit and must be removed in order to install the new track bar drop bracket and new dual shock mount. Make sure you reinstall the old bolts from the rear of the shock towers since these retain the brackets for the motor mounts.

Here is our new radius arm clamp mounted on our axle. It took a while but we finally got these on. We used the old radius arm clamp bolts to pull both ends together and then loosened the bolts and replaced them with the new ones that CAGE includes. The bolt holes do need to be elongated a bit but its nothing a long round file and drill can't take care of. The axle bushings have a specific position but they are marked on the inside with the corresponding positions which read either "front bottom" or "rear bottom." A word to the wise-it makes it easier if you mount the CAGE head radius arm-to-head unit bushings while the head unit is outside. Otherwise you'll need to fumble around with it until you get them in place like we did.

The new CAGE radius arm mount bolts up near the transfer case on the frame. You will need to measure back 22 inches from the rear edge of the cab body mount (firewall) and mark the position. You will need to line the bracket up with that mark using the larger 1-inch hole as your reference point. Make sure you get this right; otherwise your frame will look like Swiss cheese.

You will need to drill out eight holes (six on the side and two on the bottom) in your frame in order to mount the new brackets. Make sure you do not drill through any brake or fuel lines.

The lower coil buckets should bolt up on most applications but in our case it didn't. We had 1.25 inches of spacing for the lower coil buckets so we needed to slightly modify our coil buckets in order to mount them. If you do have to modify yours to fit, make sure you elongate the rear bolt hole so that you coil lines up perfectly.

We had to lift each side of the Bronco in order to install the 6.5-inch progressive rate coils. The top section of the coil is so tightly wound that you can't get the coil retaining bracket in unless you use a magnet to pull it through to where you can put the bolt through it.

Here's the comparison of our new radius arm set up next to the old radius arm on the far side. Yes, the new one is way better and has more ground clearance than we know what to do with.

We also threw on a set of CAGE Off-Road's long-travel nitrogen-charged shocks in the rear. We decided to keep our old kicker shocks for their anti wrap characteristics.

Here is our new CAGE Off-Road long-arm 6.5-inch front suspension finally installed. It took a while for us to finish it but it can be completed even in a drive way. The truck performs so much better than it did, both on the highway and off-road. Though the ride is much cushier on the progressive rate coils, it still was very stable and we were even able to ditch the sway bar.