Since I’m hung up on gutters and don’t feel like painting, I figured I’d take a few and fix the Jeep’s latest busted rear shock absorber.
This is, I swear, the only vehicle I’ve ever used where it didn’t really seem to matter much in terms of ride quality whether the shocks worked, or were even present. But it’s the principle of the thing, if nothing else.
The rears always break in the same place. I don’t understand why I’m suddenly having this rash of them, when the Jeep bashed heedlessly around the gulch with no problems for a long time before the past couple of years.
That chinsy squashed-together pin breaks in half, or breaks its ears off around a bolt, and it’s all over.
This time the only remnant I found was this tiny bit, stuck under one of the upper mounting bolts. Everything else was fine, really.
If the jeep has a lift it could be that stock shocks are the travel limit for the axle and that is putting extra stress on the mount.
Yeah, that’s what I figure. Just don’t understand why I haven’t had the problem all along.
Maybe the shocks were originally extra long for the lift kit and you’re putting standard length on them?
The shocks I’ve seen for off-roading seem to be beefier and, of course, more expensive.
Or, there’s something else wrong with your suspension and that’s what’s causing the problem (shock/suspension version of bad alternator killing battery, you know, that type of thing.)
Good luck figuring it out. You really need Ian to buy you a Unimog or Prinzgaur or something suitably more off-roadish, now that he’s a famous author… 😉 But with your luck he’d show up in a Peugot or Renault something something…
Don’t feel bad Joel, I have a 2000 Chevy C3500 pick up that I have replaced 5 windshields and 4 sets of rear shocks because they do the same thing break off at the top and I am running stock suspension and always heavy duty gas filled shocks. The nature of the beast sometimes.
Joel almost had the right word, “chinsy” (he meant chintzy I know) but it evokes “chinese-y” which is probably where they all come from now and the quality of the steel is sub par.
I know about this in great detail, having spent 7 years working with Chinese suppliers to improve quality of metal products (with partial success).
“Chintzy.” Yes. That was the word I was groping for.