Okay, so I went by the shop today and we had a long talk. I'm happy with the mid-arm install and the RubiCrawler install. I think they did a nice job, and after looking at the underside, it actually looks nicely done (in my opinion).
I am however not happy with the outboarding of the shocks. At ride height, about 1/3 of the shock shaft is showing, and my understanding is that it should be 1/2 of the shaft showing, is that correct?
We started talking about how this happened, and he said that he installed the outboard towers with the vehicle on the lift. Measurements were not taken while the vehicle was on the ground at ride height like it should have been.
I tried explaining this to him, but he said that all that really matters is the tire isn't crushing my fender at full bump, and that the driveshaft isn't bottoming out.
I explained to him that there's a lot more to it than that, but I really don't think he understood why I'm stuck in the mindset that I am.
I finally just told him flat out that while I don't know how to weld, I am 100% confident that with the advice of Blaine and others, I could do a much better outboard job myself, in my garage. I told him I wasn't satisfied with this portion of the work, and that I don't want to pay for something I'm unhappy with.
I mentioned having to buy new Poly Performance outboard towers ($400 for another set of 4), cut the old ones out, pay someone to weld the new ones in, etc.
He agreed to give me $1400 off the total cost of the project since I was unhappy with it, and I feel like this is fair.
My plan now is to take the Jeep home tomorrow (they'll be done with it then they said), and I will begin the process of cutting out the existing shock towers and putting in the new ones. I can't weld, but I know there are a ton of mobile welders online who will travel to you, and I'm confident I can find one that does really good work.
I really have no other option at this point. There's only a few people I know of that I could trust to do this and get it right, and those people are Blaine, Dave at Jeep West,
@jjvw,
@toximus, and
@mrblaine. Of course Dave is the only one close to me, and having been through the ordeal I went through with him last month, I'm simply not going to let my Jeep sit in his parking lot for 6 months with the hope that "maybe" he'll get to it at some point.
If there's other shops around here that can do it, then I have no idea. It's not that these guys can't do it, it's that they really just don't seem to understand the concept of why we're measuring the outboard mounts at ride height, why we're cycling the suspension with the tires off, and why we aren't relying on a forklift as the only form of cycling the suspension.
Apparently it works for them, and they swear by it. However, it doesn't work for me knowing that the outboard mounts aren't setup properly and that at ride height, my shocks are only showing about 1/3 of the shaft.
I'm just going to have to resort to doing this myself since I really don't have any other option.
Live and learn I guess. Like I said, I'm happy with the majority of work, I'm just not happy that the outboard wasn't done to my liking.
Hopefully Blaine won't mind if I pick his brain while I do this outboard myself. I want to get the mounts in there properly so that when someone welds them up, there is no question about where they go.