Install Guide: 2004-2008 F150 4WD Zone 6" Lift Kit on our 2007 Project Truck

Once the sway bar was set aside, Clay and Matt popped the cover caps for the axle shaft nut off the hubs using screwdrivers and small hammers.

With caps off, Clay and Matt removed the axle shaft nuts.

Next came the bolts that hold the axle to the differential flange. Oddly, one side's bolts came cleanly off, but the other required a hefty amount of penetrating oil in order to get the bolts out without breaking anything.

The guys then went after the three nuts on top of each strut and removed them from the truck while making sure to leave the center nut alone.

With the upper nuts removed, the guys removed the nuts for the lower strut mounts on the lower control arms.

After the strut mount bolts were removed, Clay and Matt unbolted the upper control arms' ball joints from our truck's spindles.

Clay and Matt then unbolted the lower control arm ball joints from the steering knuckles, which allowed them to swing the entire knuckle and axle assembly from the the truck.

The guys then marked the struts for their particular sides of the truck before removing them from our F150.

Now came the biggest hiccup in our install, due to our overly rusty truck: removing the lower control arms. While the two forward bolts came out easy enough, the two rearward bolts were locked into place due to corrosion. Even after yanking, pulling, oiling, and impact wrenching, the bolts were stuck in place. They were finally removed by having one Matt using an impact wrench, the other Matt using a pneumatic hammer, and Clay spraying enough penetrating oil to last a year to finally get the bolts out and the lower control arms removed from the truck.

After a lot of time wasted on the rusty LCAs, the guys were more than happy to move on to unbolting the rear crossmember and removing it from the truck.

Once the crossmember was out, Matt removed the bolts holding the transfer case driveshaft to the front differential and let it hang off the truck.

Matt and Clay then went around and unbolted the front differential from its mounts. The upper mounting bolt on the driver's side was a right pain to reach, and the guys had to turn the steering wheel to move the steering shaft enough to get a socket and extension through.

Before pulling out the upper mounting bolts, Matt grabbed a transmission jack in preparation for lowering down the differential and put an axle stand under our hitch receiver to prevent the truck from rocking while they dropped the front differential.

While Matt was positioning everything for the differential drop, Clay was busy transferring the bearing and hub assemblies from our stock knuckles over to Zone's lifted knuckles. He started by unbolting the four large retaining bolts and then removing the smaller bolts holding the vacuum housing assembly. He then transferred over all the vacuum housing.

Clay then pried the hub assemblies out of our factory knuckles and transferred them over to Zone's knuckles before bolting them down.

After Clay was done with the knuckles and Matt ready to go, the guys removed the last bolts from the differential, strapped it to their transmission jack, and lowered it out of the truck.

With the differential lowered out of the truck, Matt, using Zone's instructions, measure and marked off the portions of the rear crossmember mounts that needed to be cut in order to fit on the new Zone crossmember.

While Matt was measuring and marking, Clay finished transferring over hardware to our new Zone knuckles by swapping over our stock dust shields.

Next came the actual cutting, and the guys busted out their plasma cutter and cut along the lines on both the driver's side and passenger's side rear crossmember brackets.

Once the cutting was done, they pulled off the metal.

Clay then took a grinder to smooth out the cuts.

With the cutting and grinding completed, Clay and Matt installed the rear crossmember and slid the bolts through its mount, but didn't tighten them down.

Clay and Matt then fit on the front crossmember and Zone's sway bar drop brackets and slid their mounting bolts through their holes.

The guys then dropped in the upper bolts for sway bar drop brackets, but ended up needing to drill out a hole in our stock driver's side crossmember bracket for the final bolt

After the crossmembers were taken care of, Clay and Matt installed Zone's differential drop brackets onto the factory differential mounts.

Once the brackets wee in place, Matt and Clay grabbed the differential, strapped it back onto the transmission jack, and raised back into the truck.

With everything basically back up and mounted for the crossmembers, drop brackets, and differential; Clay and Matt went through bolting everything down to their proper torque specs.

Once the crossmembers and their supporting hardware was all bolted down and in place, Clay and Matt reinstalled our stock lower control arms. While the driver's side installed fairly easily, the passenger side gave us a hard time once again. Matt ended up taking a drill to the rearward mount to try to bore out as much rust and corrosion as he could.

While Matt dealt with the lower control arm from hell, Clay bolted on Zone's differential skid plate to the crossmembers.

Clay then helped Matt get the passenger side LCA bolted back in, and they were finally successful.

With both of the stock lower control arms back in place, Clay and Matt then installed Zone's strut spacers onto the tops of each strut.

Once the spacers were bolted on, the guys reinstalled the struts assemblies back into the truck sing Zone's new nuts for the upper mount.

To help make their lives much easier, the guys brushed off as much of the corrosion as they could from the lower strut mounts and the clevis mount on the lower control arms.