Adding a Body Lift to a `95.5 -`97 Isuzu Rodeo

Recently I have received several very politely worded e-mails, each one ‘reminding’ me that I’ve never actually gotten around to sharing my Body Lift experiences, so, without further delay, allow me to present:

First of all, I want to offer enormous appreciation to my very good friend, Joe (Bigpoppax2), without whom I’d still be driving around with an un-mounted PA Body Lift kit sitting in the back of my truck. --- His help (and TOOLS!) were instrumental in making it all possible. --- THANKS JOE!

While the Performance Accessories kit comes with a reasonably detailed set of instructions, they are limited to what will fit on the front and back of a single piece of paper, with precious-few illustrations, and the kit itself was intended for use on the pre-1995.5 model Rodeo. --- Although there were not very many changes made to the vehicle from the 1995 model year that affect the installation, there are a few differences, and a couple can be a bit of a nuisance, or even a little problematic, particularly if you are unaware of them before you begin.

The chief differences that we noticed in doing the lift on my `97, which were not at all covered in the instructions, were the existence of a rear frame safety capture point…

…and an issue involving the power steering reservoir…

Despite the differences, I would still very greatly stress the importance of intensively familiarizing yourself with the instructions that come with the kit. --- Personally, I’m not much for reading instructions myself… not usually… but in this case, considering what was on the line, I read them three times before doing the lift on mine.

And the rear? --- Well…

…You’ll have to cut some relief notches into each side of the rear bumper’s frame-mounting members, and then bend the newly created tabs down before you can get one of the mounting bolts to go all of the way through.--- It’s a big pain in the butt.

This includes not just the body mounts themselves, but all of the nuts and bolts for the front and rear bumpers, as well as those rear captures…

…the seat belt captures…

…and although the top ends do not thread into anything, you may even want to hit the heads of all of the interior body mounts too.

When we were jacking the body up off of the frame to install the steering extension (and YES, no matter how hard it is to install, I highly recommend that you choose to use it!), we ran into a little trouble when the lower hose on the steering fluid reservoir popped off and started spewing power steering fluid.

^ Note the presence of all of the power steering fluid… everywhere.

It would be a very good idea to add about 6-or-so-inches to the length of the existing OEM hose, before you even get started. --- I ended-up having to make a mad-dash trip to the parts store for a rather costly brass coupling, and a 6-inch length of hose. --- In retrospect, I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t choose to do without the coupling, and instead simply replace the whole thing with a longer (and much cheaper) piece of hose. [SHRUG]

…but for right now you just want to make sure that you don’t create a bind on the column when you start jacking the body off of the frame. --- By loosening it now, it’s out of the way, and it’ll make you’re life a lot easier later.

…and then later, when we were done, Joe was able to center the old tube in such a way that it adequately bridged the gap.
(Several thousand miles, and a couple of wheeling trips later… it still works just fine… but I always keep the hose from the kit in my tool box, just in case.)

Please DO NOT follow in my footsteps! --- Instead, learn from my mistakes, and make sure that you have all of the right tools for the job before you ever begin.

This would be as good of a time as any to remove the center console and shifter boot.

And here is another photo of that frame capture point that I mentioned earlier…
There are five bolts on each one of these. - Remove them all, and minus the brackets, replace the actual bolts themselves into their original holes, both on the frame, and the body. (This will prevent the holes from rusting while you figure-out what you plan to do about the 3-inch gap that you'll have in the capture, after doing the lift.)

…remove the bolts from both of these.

If you choose to leave the radiator in its existing position, and let it rise with the body, you’ll need to remove the lower section of the fan shroud.
(Note the plastic tab in the photo that’s located right next to the radiator hose bracket (A)… You’ll want to take everything off of there from that point down.) --- And once you start jacking, be sure to keep an eye on that radiator hose bracket (B)… We were able to leave it in place, and simply slide the hose through the bracket as we went along.

Everything goes a whole lot faster and easier from here with the bumpers removed. --- However, if you happen to be a 98-pound weakling, or have a bad back like mine, please remember that they’re a little heavier than they look… You might want another pair of hands at the ready… If not, even then, some strategically placed jack stands might be in order.

Once the bumpers are out of the way, loosen all of the body mount bolts. --- But DO NOT REMOVE ANY OF THEM… NOT YET! --- First, double check and make sure that you’ve covered all of the preventative steps. --- Check those instructions and make sure!

In order to speed things along a bit, Joe conjured and channeled the spirit of MacGyver. --- He created a very handy apparatus to help us raise one whole side of my Rodeo at a time. --- Using a piece of 4”x 4” lumber, and his table saw, he cut a channel down the length of the post to match the rocker crease, and then added relief notches into its width to coincide with all of the intersecting supportive points along the body.

And here are the results…

Not too shabby, huh?

If you feel confident that you’ve addressed all of the issues found in the instructions, as well as any that you have seen here that might apply to your vehicle… Then let’s get to work!

Remove all of the body mount nuts from one side of the vehicle, and very slowly and carefully jack up that side… I cannot possibly stress the importance of being methodically cautious… Make absolutely certain that you constantly check and re-check for any possible binds or snags as you go along. --- Despite all of your efforts, you still might have missed something!

If you choose to use Joe’s wooden post trick, you will very soon get an idea of what your rig is going to look like when you’re done.

Once you have it lifted far enough, obviously, the main idea here is to take the pucks and install them so that everything looks more-or-less like this…

And once you have done both sides, it will look something like this…

But don’t get too excited; at least not yet…
Despite the fact that your rig is now quite a bit taller, you still have a lot of work to do.

The real fun starts here:

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures of the shifter removal or shifter cutting processes… and a painfully memorable past experience with flash-burned eyes motivated me in the opposite direction when it came time to weld-in the shifter extensions.

--- OK, yeah, I’m a big baby… So what?

Anyway, I have a word of advice…
Don’t forget that at first you simply want to TACK-WELD them into place… You’re probably not going to be satisfied with their alignment on the first try.

In my case, on roughly the fifth test-fit, when I shifted it into Reverse and 4-Low at the same time, the levers overlapped. --- In order to get everything to clear, we (basically meaning Joe) had to heat-up the extension on the T-case shifter lever, and bend it over to the right a little. --- Once that was done, it was as good as gold!

Beyond that, without any photos to go by, you’re sort of on your own until you get to this point…



…But you’re still not out of the wood yet.

With the shifters re-mounted, you may find that the center console doesn’t quite fit back into place like it did before. --- Nothing major, but a little creative MacGyvering may be required.

ALSO: Unless you like having a steady blast of hot air making its way into the passenger compartment, you will probably want to address the shifter boot itself… Or, more to the point, the fact that your newly lengthened shifter levers tend to pop the boot out of its intended seated position. --- Believe me; sooner or later, YOU WILL be attempting to fix this, so you might as well do it RIGHT NOW… because if you don’t, on long trips, even with the A/C running full-blast, your right leg is going to get roasted to a crisp.

Not knowing any better, I skipped right past this issue at first… but after a while, I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. --- I ended up removing the center console, and used the better part of a roll of Black Gaffing Tape to completely surround and affix the shifter boot into position. --- Only time will tell if this was a stout enough approach for the long haul, but for now, ‘So far; so good’.

And as an added bonus, once I had the boot well-secured, it substantially cut-down on the drive-line roar that had been making its way into the passenger compartment. --- Now it’s every-single-bit as quiet as it was before doing the body lift.

And then there are these…

You’ll notice that with the extensions in place, the loops are pressed right up against the body itself… NOT GOOD. --- In order to prevent them from rubbing and making all sorts of noise, I had to remove them, flip them over, and then ‘persuade’ them with the old BFH a little. --- Just flipping them alone is not enough… They will rub on the brackets if you don't get them up a little higher.

There’s sort of a tradition among those of us who modify our Isuzus… For whatever reason, it appears that with each project, a little blood must flow. --- I was under the impression that I was about to break this longstanding ritual practice, because I somehow made it all of the way to the VERY LAST BOLT before doing this…

Considering everything that this project requires, I think I got off pretty easy.

Even after the body lift is completed, the hoses for the heating system are all-but-impossible to get to… Some genius of an engineer thought that they should be sandwiched in the space between the motor and the firewall, above the transmission. --- And wouldn’t you know it… No sooner than we were done; I had a coolant leak occur there…

Oddly enough, for whatever reason, the leak disappeared completely on its own, and I have not seen any sign of it since. --- However, I seriously doubt that everyone who experiences a leaking heater hose will be quite so lucky. --- Just to be on the safe side, for a while, you’ll probably want to keep a watchful eye out for any leaks.

If you have a brush guard, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it’s not going to fit back on there without being modified. --- You’ll have to add a section into the vertical supports to match your lift…

This means you’ll be cutting…

And grinding…
And welding…
And painting…
Until you have something that looks about like this…

With any write-up, something is almost always left out or forgotten... So I'm quite sure that I overlooked something along the way. --- If anyone runs into any trouble, or has any questions at all, please feel free to contact me... I'll be gald to help in any way that I can!