Ordering parts to do a Jeep TJ Body Armour Install was a cheap way for me to not only increase the appearance of my truck, but also tackle a few problems in an inexpensive manner. I was looking to beef up the sides of my Jeep while at the same time fix a little bit of rust on my tub without spending much money. I managed to find myself a full set of body armour made by Barricade for a pretty reasonable price off one of the Jeep websites and figured I’d make an install guide for anyone else looking to do this.
The installation is pretty straight forward and doesn’t require too much- I opted to add a few extra steps in to make sure I was able to seal the armour so no water could get between the paneling and rot the body.
Tools needed:
• Drill
• Drill bits (I forget the size of the bolts but easy to see once it is in your hand)
• Clamps
• Hex bits
• Socket set / wrench for the nuts
• Caulking gun (optional)
• Black caulking / roof patch (optional)
• Rust inhibitor (if repairing rust spots only)
• Spray on Touch up Paint (if repairing rust only)
• Body sanding pad (if repairing rust only)
• Painters tape (if repairing rust only)
Recommended optional step- I suggest washing the Jeeps back fender area where the armour will be installed. You don’t want to leave anything like mud or dirt that can affect the fitment or rot away your paneling now that you won’t be able to wash back in behind there anymore.
Step 1) You need to remove anything that is in the way of where you are putting your body armour panels on the vehicle. This includes fender flares, license plates, rear tail lights, gas tank cover and any aftermarket accessory that you may have installed. In my case, this was all very straight forward and accessible. Everything was a couple of screws and came apart very easily. Put everything off to the side and make sure you tuck any wires for the lights out of the way so you don’t pinch them.
Step 2) If you want to address any rusting spots, now is the time to do so. Give them a quick sanding to remove anything loose and take the body panel to bare clean metal. Tape the good sections off so that only the bare metal areas are exposed and spray them with rust inhibitor paintable spray. Once that dries spray them again with some touch up paint (I just used tremclad as my Jeep was black and this spot is never going to be seen again after this). Give this section your sprayed about an hour to dry before you bolt on your armour pieces- This added an extra hour and a bit to my install time total, not a big deal and nipped a problem in the butt before it got worse.
Step 3) Having an extra set of hands here would help, but I did it on my own. Take your armour piece and position it up on the Jeep. I like to line up the fender flare bolts first as they exist and the others you need to drill – I threaded each of those bolts in loosely to hold the armour in place. I then took my clamps and clamped the armour exactly where I wanted it making sure the fitment was perfect everywhere. Clamp tip: Put a 2×4 on the inside of your Jeep so that the clamp stays flat and applies good pressure to the armour panel.
Step 4) Once you are happy with the fitment, you can get your drill bit out and start drilling each of your holes. Now, if I learned anything while doing some carpentry work in the past it was to place the clamps as close as possible to the hole that you will be drilling to make sure the armour stays nice and tight to the body and that everything is lined up straight. I drilled one hole at a time and put the bolt in place and tightened it down moderately. I did these one at a time because I didn’t want my armour to possibly shift without me noticing and install cockeyed on me. Repeat this process for both sides of the Jeep until you have gotten all the holes bolted up. Move your clamp nearest to the bolt you just tightened down over to the next bolt you are going to drill as you move along.
Step 5) Begin reinstalling all your parts like the plastic for the gas tube, tail lights and license plate holder. If you intend to caulk the cracks between the body, don’t reinstall the fenders right now- it will just make it easier for you to access and go around the perimeter of the armour. For me, I left the back fenders off. I also had a few bolts left to pop in in this picture!
Step 6) Since I can’t take a photo and caulk at the same time, I called over a buddy to run a bead along the entire edge of the armour for me. I had him run a bead across the top, down the sides and underneath across the whole wheel well area to seal this up good. I didnt want any water/moisture getting in this area especially when off-roading which would slowly rot my panels out. The trick to making this look good is to do a steady bead and then come back and run your finger through it smoothly in one motion with a little bit of soap/water on the tip. This extra step makes it look like these were welded on!
I used a roof caulking you can use a variety of different caulking- they all have different dry times…mine ended up taking 20 days before it fully 100% hardened, but I still off-roaded the Jeep in that time…I would just avoid offroading for a couple days after you do this so the caulking has at least 24-48 hours to initially dry.
Step 7) if you have fender flares you can bolt them back on after you are done caulking- careful you don’t touch the caulking though while it is drying.
As always- share this with anyone you think it would help out across the forums or your social media channels!
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