Front Shock Options for Stock Ride Height

[Salvagedcircuit]

I've been having trouble finding recently manufactured front shocks for my comanche that actually work. I am after stock ride height.

 

I just finished installing replacement springs, the MOOG CC782 Coil Spring Set and the Moog K160039 Coil Spring Insulator, to replace my 34 year old stock front springs and insulators. Yes, they are likely stock, the front shocks I removed stated marco (the monroe OEM sub brand). Made in Canada. Oh Canada!

 

I purchased two brand new Monroe Gas-Matic LT Shock Absorbers part# 59322 from advanceauto parts online and both were dead right out of the box.

It is usually best practice to prime a shock before installation and even though I primed them 3 times, I could easily slip the plastic restriction cable back onto the top of the shock before it started rising up. I could easily press the shock down with one hand. I let the shocks sit upright for about a week before installation. They were most definitely shot.

 

I went to my local advance and picked up one Rancho RS55128. While slightly better, the shock had very little strength. After priming 3 times the shock would raise but incredibly slow.

 

I vividly remember about 10 years ago, when doing the front shocks on my '97 astro van, that I primed the shocks before install. They were the bog standard monroe magnums but when primed I had to push down on them a lot before forcing them into the front strut tower and I just barely made it in time. The gas-matic and rancho shocks I picked up feel defective in comparison.

 

I guess I have been having a bad month for shocks. I ordered two monroe 58484 coil-over rear shocks for the comanche and one leaked right out of the box! I rotated one of the eyelets to line them up and a pissing sound occurred and fluid leaked out of the shock. I did not even press on the shock at that point. Who could have guessed that selling an automotive parts manufacturer (Tenneco) to a brand management firm (apollo global brands) would be a good idea? What is quality control? I had to get a replacement set from rock auto.

 

I also received 2 defective sets of monroe oe spectrum shocks for mt wk2 grand cherokee earlier in 2022. I went with bilstein and the overall quality was a lot better.

 

I am now looking at a set of Bilstein 24-185622 shocks. The issue is they are rated for a 2-3in ride height. I am after stock height. The extended length on the Bilstein's is 22.09in. In comparison, the Rancho RS55128 has an extended length of 21.03in. About an inch difference.

 

I'm about to sift through the bilstein catalog for a perfect match, but do you think the Bilstein 24-185622 would be good enough? Would they get damaged in this application?

 

I did a side by side spring comparison. There was about a 0.5in height difference between the moog and the OEM spring. The moog springs also claim to have a variable rate design, with tighter coil towards the top of the spring. I don't care if my front end is slightly higher than factory stock measurements, I need something that actually works at this point.

 

I'm going to give bilstein a call tomorrow and see what they have to say.

 

Thanks guys

 

[75sv1]

I might try the KYB stock ones. Get the ones in Silver Color. They are made in Japan. I had some on a stock '98 XJ. A bit stiffer than stock. I liked them. 

[Eagle]

Gabriel, KYB, Bilstein

 

Keep in mind that you don't need a lot of gas pressure. The shocks aren't supposed to carry any weight. You may have rejected perfectly good shocks.

 

The gas is in there under low pressure only to help prevent the hydraulic fluid in the shock from foaming under harsh driving conditions.

[Salvagedcircuit]

2 hours ago, Eagle said:

Gabriel, KYB, Bilstein

 

Keep in mind that you don't need a lot of gas pressure. The shocks aren't supposed to carry any weight. You may have rejected perfectly good shocks.

 

The gas is in there under low pressure only to help prevent the hydraulic fluid in the shock from foaming under harsh driving conditions.

Thanks for the input. I unfortunately did not film the shocks or use any measurable means to reproduce how poor the new shocks were performing, but for example, these are shocks from a GMC Syclone. The Syclone is a similar era truck to the comanche but optimized for speed and power.

 

 

If you look at his comparison, the 30 year old bilstein shocks did not take too much effort to compress where as the new ones did. it is evident that he could not fully compress the new shocks with all his weight. The brand new rancho and monroe gas-matics I purchased for the comanche performed worse than that 30 year old bilstein. I did not have to expend much effort at all to compress them. And that was after I primed them a few times. This is why I believe the new shocks I purchased were defective.

 

I'm hoping I will find better shocks from another vendor.

[75sv1]

I replaced some White Box shocks on he rear of my XJ with Rancho RS900s. The RS900s did feel flat. I did not pump them up though. They seem to work well though. I have them at mid adjustment. 

[gogmorgo]

Are you doing something fancy with the truck? 
Other than some heavy duty stuff most shocks are very compressible right out of the box. Like Eagle said, they aren’t usually intended to carry load, just to control compression and extension of the spring. With a gas shock you expect it to rebound after you compress it. A high-performance or heavy duty shock will be firmer under compression than a typical passenger car shock because more control is better or you need more resistance for higher suspension force. Their primary function is preventing the spring from oscillating, by resisting motion. You can get into fancier stuff with performance shocks, different valving for compression and extension, or slow or quick movement. But for just a regular off the shelf replacement passenger vehicle shock for a lightweight vehicle like a Comanche, you’re going to be able to compress it fairly easily. 

[Salvagedcircuit]

4 hours ago, gogmorgo said:

Are you doing something fancy with the truck? 

Just using it for normal truck activities! That's it. It's not a race truck. It's not an offroad machine. It's just a work truck.

From my experience in replacing front shocks on my '97 astro, which is a passenger van, and my brother's '88 XJ, and the rear shocks in my folks wk2, the shocks I received were far too weak to be working correctly.

I have a set of monroe OESpectrum 37083 Shock Absorbers on order and if those are junk I'll just spend the extra money and order a pair of Bilstein 24-017985, which were designed for the 91+ cherokee with the up country 1in lift package.

[pizzaman09]

I went with Ranchos on the front, they had lots of gas pressure right out of the box and work great.  If have to dig to find the part number but they are the 5000 series and for stock ride height.

 

I'd have preferred KYB if I could have found them, I have KYB in the back and they ride very well, the Ranchos are a bit stiff for my liking.

[gogmorgo]

15 hours ago, Salvagedcircuit said:

Just using it for normal truck activities! That's it. It's not a race truck. It's not an offroad machine. It's just a work truck.

From my experience in replacing front shocks on my '97 astro, which is a passenger van, and my brother's '88 XJ, and the rear shocks in my folks wk2, the shocks I received were far too weak to be working correctly.

I have a set of monroe OESpectrum 37083 Shock Absorbers on order and if those are junk I'll just spend the extra money and order a pair of Bilstein 24-017985, which were designed for the 91+ cherokee with the up country 1in lift package.

Well I’m not there and can’t argue with your impression of the shocks without having experienced it myself. But from my experience in changing dozens of shocks on a wide variety of vehicles with axle ratings between 400 and 40,000lbs, off the shelf shocks always seem to work just fine and yet always seem far more compressible than I expect them to be.

It’s pretty rare to get one bad even out of an old beat to hell box covered in dust. I found one once that was obviously leaking from the oil all over the inside of the box that didn’t spring back, but that’s it. Again I can’t really argue with you but it seems like a heck of a coincidence you got that many bad shocks in a row. Not outside the realm of possibility I suppose but generally the simplest explanations are also the correct-est.

[Salvagedcircuit]

29 minutes ago, gogmorgo said:

It’s pretty rare to get one bad even out of an old beat to hell box covered in dust. I found one once that was obviously leaking from the oil all over the inside of the box that didn’t spring back, but that’s it. Again I can’t really argue with you but it seems like a heck of a coincidence you got that many bad shocks in a row. Not outside the realm of possibility I suppose but generally the simplest explanations are also the correct-est.

Absolutely! It seems incredibly unlikely that all the shocks were bad. If shocks were statistically that unreliable, there would be a lot of companies bankrupt right now. It doesn't make sense. I'm going to see how these new oe-spectrum shocks are hopefully they will work out fine. Otherwise I'll look into KYB or bilstein.

 

Thanks for the input!

[Jlindsey86]

KYB Gas A just shocks are what a prefer. Excellent ride quality.

[Salvagedcircuit]

The Monroe 37083 OE spectrum shocks showed up. I'll let you judge on how they perform.

 

 

Details:

-Each shock was primed ~8 times.

-Each shock has been sitting upright since yesterday when I received them in the mail.

-Each shock was sealed in box.

 

Shock#1 rise time: 3min 45sec

Shock#2 rise time: 28sec

 

They are both going back. To anyone purchasing shocks for their vehicle, or any component for the matter, make sure you test it. I am going to perform the same test on the Bilstein shocks when they arrive.

[gogmorgo]

I’d still be more concerned about how they react to you forcing them to move than their rebound time. And it doesn’t look like you had to push one harder than the other. Again how quickly or forcefully they push back isn’t really part of the design metrics unless they’re specially intended to support some of the load, which these aren’t. Their function is to resist movement, keeping spring oscillations in check. If you install the shock and do a bounce test on that corner, and you get more than a couple rebounds, then yes, the shock is bad. Even a little oil weepage on a shock that sees lots of movement (like on the gravel roads we have around here) isn’t enough to write off a shock so long as it’s still doing it’s job. That’s in the safety inspection books, and even Monroe themselves tell you that even though they make money selling replacements. 
But yes, it is unusual for them to rebound that slowly. If it fails the bounce test I would return just that shock for a replacement instead of trying some new and different product. The other one’s fine. Ordering two replacements is just doubling your chances of getting another single bad one. 

[Whitaker717]

I have the Rancho shocks and I love them. So far so good