woo-hoo!

[JeepcoMJ]

special thanks to 89eliminator and his dad for finish welding my shock mounts for me. (I suck at welding, can only tac-weld, and a little BeccaMig 140 welder isn't gonna penetrate well enough...so I went to their house and he welded up for me)

 

oh, in case you haven't guessed, that means that I now have *new* rear shocks and mounts that will not make the axle fall off :roll: :brows: . refurbished (cleaned and painted) a set of xj 4.5" rear shocks, which measure 25" eye to eye at full extension, and 15.25" eye to eye at full compression. set them with 3" of up-travel and 6.75" of down-travel, as the bump-stop is set accordingly...so now the rear should flex decently without stuffing 100% in the wheel well.

 

also installed an extended rear vent line, and now I'm moving on to the front. extending the front upper control arms by 1/8" to correct the pinion angle, then re-aligning the steering, then tomorrow I can install the skid plates and wheeling flag

 

pics later tonite :D, tomorrow the new ICM comes in for the truck so I will be able to drive it reliably

[JeepcoMJ]

pics

wade also gave me a whip flag for the badlands run, and I mounted that as well.

 

here's the shocks I used;

you can see the left shock is the dirty/grungy one, the right shock is the clean one. they clean up nice when you wire wheel the paint off completely. they are 4.5" lift rear rough country shocks for an XJ , with the bar-pins removed and sleeves pressed in the lower ends. complete length eye to eye is 25", compressed is 15.25". this gives 9.75" of travel.

 

next you will see the shock mounts. they're two tabs on each shock which allow the shock to sit between them.

wish I'd had more light for the pics. where I located them allows the shock to sit at 18.75" with the truck at a stand-still on level ground. it allows 3.75" of up-travel, which is perfect since that's about what the bump-stops allow (I will be extending them tomorrow) and will keep the wheels out of the inner fender. this also allows me 6" of down-travel as well. not too shabby at zero cost to me :D

shocks clean

left one installed

right one installed

left one, this showing the mounts. again, sorry for the lighting

and official badlands flag-whip installed

 

tomorrow I just need to spray up the rear bumper and install it, then tighten up a little bit of the front end, align the steering, and install the skid plates. bleed brakes too...oh, and install the front axle vent line... :oops: