Help me wrap my head around a shock length issues

[jeepndogs]

So right now I have a 3” lift on the Lj and I am running Rancho 9000 shocks. The front of the Jeep is about 3/4-1” lower than the front, some is the rake and some is from the arb bumper and winch. I want to level out the Jeep and I was going to just use a 3/4 in spacer in the front. My issue is right now the shock I have has 14.6 compressed length, 23.09 extended and 8.45 travel. The bump stops are properly set, the Jeep at ride height has 4 1/4” of the shock shaft exposed so the baias is about as close to 50/50 I could get. The thing rides and handles great. If I add 3/4 in of spacer I obviously will lose some down travel, but is it worth it to actually replace the shock? The next size shock has the following length 16.1 compressed, 25.9 extended, 9.8 travel.

 

[BuildBreakRepeat]

So right now I have a 3” lift on the Lj and I am running Rancho 9000 shocks. The front of the Jeep is about 3/4-1” lower than the front, some is the rake and some is from the arb bumper and winch. I want to level out the Jeep and I was going to just use a 3/4 in spacer in the front. My issue is right now the shock I have has 14.6 compressed length, 23.09 extended and 8.45 travel. The bump stops are properly set, the Jeep at ride height has 4 1/4” of the shock shaft exposed so the baias is about as close to 50/50 I could get. The thing rides and handles great. If I add 3/4 in of spacer I obviously will lose some down travel, but is it worth it to actually replace the shock? The next size shock has the following length 16.1 compressed, 25.9 extended, 9.8 travel.

Personally I don’t think it’s worth it to buy new shocks for that, just cycle your suspension and bump stop accordingly!

 

[jeepndogs]

Personally I don’t think it’s worth it to buy new shocks for that, just cycle your suspension and bump stop accordingly!

That’s my initial thought. I had also considered machining up a 1/2 spacer that mounts to the axel between the shock and the axel. Not sure how that would effect the uptravel but it would keep almost the same down travel and keep the shock bias close to 50/50 still

 

[jjvw]

If there is unusable shock compression after the bump stops touch, then make a spacer for the lower mount to turn that unused travel into down travel.

 

[jeepndogs]

If there is unusable shock compression after the bump stops touch, then make a spacer for the lower mount to turn that unused travel into down travel.

It’s been a while since I set up the suspension and bump stops I don’t remember exactly what was there.

 

[jeepndogs]

If there is unusable shock compression after the bump stops touch, then make a spacer for the lower mount to turn that unused travel into down travel.

@jjvw, I went back and actually read through your post on regaining unused shock travel and Unlimited’s take on this also. After cycling the suspension today I have 1 1/4 of unused uptravel since the fenders are my limits right now. In your post you had fabbed up a spacer out of what looks to be an I beam? I am basically going to just mill out a 1” spacer that fits on the lower mount of the axel for the shock to mount to. That should keep my shock bias right around 50/50 and get me an additional 1” of down travel after I add the spring spacer

 

[jjvw]

My bolt spacers were just sleeves made from round tube stock each about an inch long.

 

[pcoplin]

You won't need to add any bump stop with a 3/4 inch spacer. Just pop your spacer in, and run those shocks. You won't likely feel any difference.