Video Review & Installation

These Rugged Ridge Off-Road Jack Non-Locking Mounting Brackets are for those of you that have a 1997 to 2006 TJ that are looking for a way to store a high lift style or a farm jack style jack on your Jeep. Now, a lot of people like to carry these for off-road situations, and they can come in useful. However, it's not going to be a necessity. If you're going off-road, in a lot of different scenarios usually a tow strap or a winch is going to be a safer way to get yourself out of a stuck situation. But there are some situations where a high lift jack is very, very useful. So, if you do wanna have one, you're gonna have to store it somewhere, and this is going to be one option for you. Now, there are some storage locations that are gonna be inside the vehicle but, as you know, in your TJ you don't have a ton of storage space. And if you are gonna have it inside, you definitely need to have it strapped down. If you were to get into an accident, you don't want one of those big, heavy jacks flying around on the inside of your Jeep. So, storing it on the outside can be a good solution for you. This set of brackets is going to be a very simple one-out-of-three-wrench installation, shouldn't take you more than a half hour to complete, and we'll talk a bit more about that in just a second.Now, the hood mounting or location is an area that is otherwise unutilized, which makes it nice for storage. Normally, you wouldn't be able to put anything up there. You put these brackets on there. Now, it has your jack up there. You're not taking away other storage space that you could be using for something else. However, having it up on the hood here does mean that there's a little bit of opportunity for some damage to your hood. You have to very careful when you're putting it on and off of these brackets. Of course, you don't want to slip, you don't wanna ding the cowl, ding the hood. In most scenarios, I know, some of you guys aren't gonna care about a little scratch, but for a lot of us, you do want to be a little bit careful. So, if that's a major concern of yours, you might want to look at a bumper, either a front or rear bumper mounting bracket, or one of those brackets that goes on the tire carrier. There are some other solutions. If you like the way that the hood mount functions, you like the way that it looks, you think it's gonna be a neat mount, I think this is going to be an excellent option for you.There isn't a whole lot to say about this bracket from a construction standpoint. It is very, very simple, but it is also very, very high quality. This is designed to go on two of the three hood hinge bolts on either side of your hood, so no need to drill anything. Just remove those bolts, put this bracket in place. This does come with a small rubber gasket to go between the bracket and the hood of the Jeep, to prevent any sort of chafing or scratching from happening. The bracket itself is going to be a T6061 aluminum, which is very high grade aluminum. The aluminum is strong. It's lightweight. It won't rust. It might get a little oxidation on it if some of this powder coat gets scratched off, but you're not going to end up with full-on rust like you would with a mild steel. And then, you have these very large thumb screws that actually do the connecting of the jack onto the bracket, making for a very easy connection without the need to use any tools every time you take the jack on and off of its mount.A pair of these brackets comes in at $60. I do think that's a pretty good deal. Any time you're buying anything that's made of aluminum, it's gonna be a little bit more expensive than a mild steel version of that. This is a high grade aluminum. So it's a little bit pricier, but I do think it's worth it. You certainly don't want something that is steel hanging up on your hood there, rusting, dripping rust stains down on your hood. So aluminum's the way to go. You have to pay a little bit more for it, but I do think it's worth it.So, if you're looking for a way to mount a high lift style jack, a farm style jack on the hood of your TJ, I would recommend these brackets from Rugged Ridge. And you can find them right here at extremeterrain.com.