What should I do to redeem work reputation, get more respect, and earn promotion?

I work in an aviation production work environment with men, half prior military, half locals who either worked their way up through experience or vocational certifications. I am male myself and we all p the time by cutting on eachother. everyone dishes it out everyone takes it, that's just the way it goes. Sometime early in my 3 years here, I was disliked by a supervisor. I only found out that I was "blackballed" after I changed shifts voluntarily about 8 months ago. All the while, I was expecting a promotion. I asked my new boss what I could do to improve, but he wasn't familiar enough with the expectations of my job to know so he said he would ask my immediate managers and get back to me which lead nowhere. As of now, I am watching many people with less experience who do shotty work being promoted to the level I am working toward within their first year. I fear that I am being unfairly overlooked, disrespected, and trapped. Quitting is not an option because I enjoy the job itself, and nothing else in the area pays as well without a degree. I feel strongly that everyone should respect eachother enough to back off if the teasing starts to be taken too hard. I don't hit below the belt when cutting on people, but I'm afraid this is being percieved as weakness therefore costing me respect and reputation. It wouldn't be a big deal if being well liked wasn't a larger factor in promotion than quality, experience, and work ethic. I realize that HR is in place to help rectify these kind of issues, but being that I am a participant in the teasing, I really can't bring a revolution down on my work place without becoming a prime target from HR and my coworkers. My new boss on the shift has recommended me for promotion, which is good, but I had to prove myself worthy of the next level in order to achieve the one I feel I've deserved for years. I was recently evaluated as "average" even though I was asked to fill in for the floor managers over the holidays over 3 others who outranked me and 4 who didn't. What should I do? I feel like the boss would view an honest share of my concerns as me being a baby and looking a gift horse in the mouth for not being satisfied with my average yet promotable status. Should I start making demands? Any advice is welcome, but let's try and stay away from finger pointing.