As long as you aren't mechanically inept, you can do the shacles/TT yourself. It will take some creative placement of jacks and jackstands to do it, but if you look at how the rear suspension works, it isn't hard to figure out what to do. I would say that most, if not all people here that have done it (myself included) have done it ourselves. I placed a jackstand under the rear of the frame for the side I was working on. Next I put a bottle jack between the leaf and frame, behind the rear axle and lifted just enough to make it tight. Next, I loosened the bolts for the stock shackle and removed it. Next I jacked up the bottle jack to get the distance between the end of the leaf and the frame to the same height as my longer shackles. Finally, I put the bolts in and tightened everything up. Repeat for other side.
I did the body lift myself with the help of a friend that had done his a couple weeks earlier. It is harder than the shackles, mainly because there is a lot more work involved. Nothing major though. It can easily be completed in a weekend. There really isn't much if any more work in doing the 3" lift versus the 2" though. I think some people have gotten by without the steering extension on the 2" lift but putting the extension in only adds about 15 minutes to the procedure. The emergency brake calbe might not need to be relocated either. The bulk of the work is still the same though. You still have to remove all 10 body mount bolts, jack up the body, put the new blocks in, and put it all back together. I would say at most the 2" lift might save you an hour over the 3". If there is any chance that you will want to go taller, go for the 3", otherwise you might end up doing it twice. If you are hoping to run 33s, then I would definately go for the 3". My current 265 75/16 tires fit with minor rubbing on my stock Explorer. Once I trimmed a piece of plastic from the wheel wells, the only time they rubbed was at full compression. At full compression they would contact the top of my plastic fender liner. It never caused a problem, but the tires did look like they were stuffed in there. That was the main reason for going with the body lift. It looks a lot better now with the added bonus of my tires not coming anywhere near the top of my fender liners now. When my current tires wear out, I am considering going up to the 33" equivalent 285 75R16. That sould be in about another year.
