Shocks to long

[special ed]

Just finished up repairing this and thought I would share. Both spring perches were braking off and cracked the frame. Stock shock towers and extended fox shocks with the bottom through bolt plate the shocks only had a couple inches of up travel before being at full compression. Mind you this is an old build but over time off roading finally broke it. We drilled stop holes in all the cracks on the frame. Ground everything down, welded up every crack. Re ground the frame flat and added a metal plate inside the perch. That we rose welded in and all the way around. Had to make a new support strap on the passenger side as the old one was completely cracked in half. Good coat of self etching primer and 2 coats of Rust-Oleum to seal it all up.

After it was all back together we added RTE adjustable shock towers and raised the shock up in the turret to add a little more up travel and prevent bottoming out the shock. Focused installation on down travel that the spring would not dislocate from the upper rubber perch to far allowing to much down travel. Relocated the shock reservoirs. Then off to test it in the articulation track at the ranch.

Just something to think about when building your suspension.

 

[outono]

What sort of lift were they running originally? +5?

 

[Siia109]

Im scratching my head how this could happen - wouldn't the ride be incredibly stiff?

 

[ERover82]

Probably had to visit the dentist every time that truck hit the "bump stops".

 

[special ed]

Problem is that it was done when it was a new car and back then we didnt have the resources we have now, also attension to details when mixing and matching parts together. You should always look at up travel when doing an out of the box build. You need to know how much compression you have and order shocks to the length you can accomodate. Many custom shocks have an option for a short body which is usually neccesary. on this one i have the shock length set so the spring can not dislocate at full droop giving it the most amount of travel the shock can afford. I have a cross articulation pit dug out on the ranch so i can twist up an axle and see how things are moving after a build.

 

[Jimmy]

on this one i have the shock length set so the spring can not dislocate at full droop giving it the most amount of travel the shock can afford.

If I'm reading this correctly, you are using the shocks as the suspension travel limiters. Don't do that. If you need to limit, use limiting straps or let the springs do that by clamping them to the mounts.

 

[LRDONE]

If I'm reading this correctly, you are using the shocks as the suspension travel limiters. Don't do that. If you need to limit, use limiting straps or let the springs do that by clamping them to the mounts.

That's how my shock just broke. I now have my upper mounts dropped 2 inches to keep the shock from extending too far.