I know! Now I'm afraid to post anything at all, lest I reduce the WTJF membership any further!
Guess I'll have to go back to hitting up @Squatch for more build pix. He won't be run off quite so easily...
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Rancho shock debacle. Warning: read for amusement purposes only
- Thread starter Westtown Willy
- Start date
Guess I'll have to go back to hitting up @Squatch for more build pix. He won't be run off quite so easily...
Hmmm...there's a backstory here somewhere that I apparently missed. @glwood, are you upsetting people in your spare time? LOLI know! Now I'm afraid to post anything at all, lest I reduce the WTJF membership any further!
Guess I'll have to go back to hitting up @Squatch for more build pix. He won't be run off quite so easily...
And you're right. Once I outlasted the one individual that truly irked me, I decided that I was here for the duration. I'm not going anywhere...much like my build thread!!!
*Right. More pictures. Got it....
Yup, I asked for some photos, and the guy took his $60k worth of SnapOn tools and left town...now I've got Bend Larry on the warpath...
Yeah, I just saw the posts with the latter of the two. Kinda feel like that thread took some kind of weird turn that no one anticipated. Hope everyone just kind of steps back and takes a breath. Life's too short to get twisted up over the little things.
As for the first one, I definitely must've missed it. What with the wedding this past weekend, and all, I couldn't keep up with my friends as much as I'd like to.
Just happened today. You didn't miss much. Back to our regularly scheduled TJ fun...
LOL I actually found it before you responded. That was just a strange event, I'll tell you what...
Oh man.
Had many days like this working on vehicles lol. One particularly bad day almost ended up with my buddy putting a pick axe through the hood of his K5 Blazer lol.
Luckily I talked him down.
Had many days like this working on vehicles lol. One particularly bad day almost ended up with my buddy putting a pick axe through the hood of his K5 Blazer lol.
Luckily I talked him down.
@Westtown Willy, I appreciate you posting the 'adventures'. I once sold my TJ and said I'd never have another...guess what?...
Being that I have two broken rear shock mount bolts to contend with, can you point me in the right direction on how to outboard the rear shocks?
I'd like to read-up on it, and see what all is involved. Thanks!
Edit: Never mind. Found enough info on it to determine that I'll just deal with extracting the broken bolts!
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OP
This is awesome hahahaha
Being that I have two broken rear shock mount bolts to contend with, can you point me in the right direction on how to outboard the rear shocks?
I'd like to read-up on it, and see what all is involved. Thanks!
Edit: Never mind. Found enough info on it to determine that I'll just deal with extracting the broken bolts!
When dealing with extracting the bolts I feel qualified to offer one valuable tip that you won't find in any thread or YouTube video, be sure to remove your head from your ass each time you are within 50 feet of your TJ
I have printed this and laminated it to hang in my garage. When I'm about to throw a wrench across the street or grab a BFH and start pounding on something out of frustration... I will calmly walk over and read your post and understand that there are nice folks out there probably dealing with much more frustration and crazy things that I currently am. :hmmm:
Holy crap! I nearly pissed my pants laughing at your story and thinking well shucks I ain't the only one who has these challenges! Great story.Bear with me, there is nothing to be learned here, this is just a painful, humbling odyssey which reminded me I’m not a mechanic, amateur mechanic, or even a guy that might look like a mechanic if you dressed me up like one. Really at best I’m capable of only the simplest of ‘car maintenance stuff’ & bolt on type modifications & I need to remember that going forward.
It all began when I learned I couldn’t drive another mile without some Rancho 5000X shocks, I hate you people
So I ordered a set from 4wheelparts and they sent me:
1) one functional rear shock that matched the part number I ordered;
2) one dysfunctional rear shock that matched the part number I ordered;
3) one functional rear shock that did not match the part number I ordered; and
4) one functional front shock that matched the part number I ordered.
Here are the two correct rear shocks that I ordered, one would only compress half way:
View attachment 50364 View attachment 50365
I contacted the company and learned that I had to make a warranty claim on the defective shock, all 4 went back.
I then ordered a set from Allen’s Off Road and a few days later I received 3 Rancho 5000X shocks and one 9000X front shock.
View attachment 50366
Starting to think the Shock Gods didn’t want me installing Ranchos.
Anyway I contacted the company and Allen called me and advised a replacement would ship out immediately. That was a standup move, I was happy.
Until I began installation.
Front shocks of course were easy, took about 15 minutes to remove them.
Inside of the next 15 minutes I snapped both bolts off the driver’s side rear.
Undeterred, I moved over to the passenger side where I managed to remove one of the bolts cleanly but smoothed the second down into a nice round ball.
Frustrated, I baked a pizza
View attachment 50367
And drank some beer
View attachment 50368
Then I began googling & learned what a monumental pain in the sack this particular job has been for so many people. I did know enough to begin shooting the bolts with PB about 2 weeks before I started but that did not help, apparently.
I went through all the options, air chisel, cold chisel & BFH, drill, lift the body & get after it & on & on & on. I figure I oughta at least try to break them off with a chisel before taking any more drastic steps & fortunately there was a drain hole just south of the driver’s side shock bolts that was positioned in a way that it allowed me to get the chisel in there & whack the hell out of it with a small sledge hammer. Didn’t work, not even a little bit.
I next thought about lifting the body but who’s kidding who, that would’ve only ended with more breakage and probably a trip to the ER so I decided to go with the @derekmac & @Erik V method of cutting access panels in the bed. Not ideal, but I’m not concerned with the aesthetics of that part of the Jeep (no passengers, seats or rugs, my tool box covers the entire rear) & the sheet metal panels are easily removable for future accessibility; also not concerned about resale value as I’m keeping this puppy until I (or the TJ) drop dead anyway which, given my Darwinian proclivities, could be sooner rather than later.
Now, the Jeep is in the garage, wheels off & tools everywhere.
View attachment 50369
I realized I needed an open work space in the bed to cut these holes so off came the spare, out came the tool box & the soft top (which has been down since spring) had to be put back up however I can’t put it up in the garage because the ceiling is too low. So, I lifted the top up & out of my way & secured it to the ceiling with a tie-down then left for Home Depot to pick up some Dremel cutting wheels.
About a half hour later I returned with my bag of stuff & thinking it’d be good to have some daylight on the subject I hit the garage door opener, forgetting that I had the soft top tied to the ceiling & directly in the path of the door
Did you ever see something happen you knew was wrong but your brain couldn’t comprehend it? It was like that.
What I saw was my soft top moving and the garage door bending at an angle so the right half of it was all the way up while over at the left side an entire panel was still visible.
I froze, then hit the button for it to come back down & it began binding & making an awful sound so I jumped out of the car & ran in & pulled the emergency cord to release the tension. That’s when I realized what I had done, the monumental act of stupidity that I had accomplished
As I stood there looking at what appeared to be a completely bent garage door and/or set of tracks I thought to myself, yea, I’ll just swap in some new shocks, save $150 on labor, mmm hmm, yup, I’m a mechanic now, I got this – now I’m $3,000 for a new garage door & I STILL haven’t gotten the old shocks out.
As I studied the door situation I saw that the cord that pulls the left side up was out of its spool & all bunched up like a tangled pile of extension cord. This thing:
View attachment 50370
Hoping that was the only problem I popped the cotter pin, disconnected it from the bottom of the door, untangled it then rewound the spool, reconnected it to the door & slid the cotter pin back in & boom, straight as an arrow. I felt as though I could add that repair to the overall success of the shock job, I needed the encouragement.
Back to the shock job.
It took me 3 days & about 7 wheels to cut those miserable fucking nuts off & even after I got them off there was still enough of the bolt in there that I had to pound away with a punch & drill to break through. What a pain in the ass, I broke about 7 drill bits getting it all out of there. Had to pick up some grinding wheels as well to smooth things out. I can’t tell you how many trips to Home Depot I made (& Lowes to get new grade 8 hardware), because I don’t want to count.
Installation of the new shocks (I painted them black as well) was relatively uneventful, but the PTSD suffered during this process may be with me for a while.
View attachment 50371 View attachment 50372
I began the job last Sunday & finished yesterday, 8 days. EIGHT DAYS! Of course it was an hour here, a few hours there, but still…
I had that feeling “WTF am I doing… this is so not worth it… why?”, but then I looked at my rig parked up at the end of the driveway after the test drive & remembered:
View attachment 50373
I can't wait to hit the trails this Saturday :aplastao::ARMS1:
Lou
Wowens79
Member
You may have struggled with the shocks, but you absolutely nailed the pizza!!! Not much better than pizza cooked on a Big Green Egg!!
After reading this post........I just decided to have a local mechanic install the shocks I just bought. LOL!!! Maybe your nightmare scenario post saved me from the same. Hopefully I can hang out and watch him do the swap.
Daaaang! That was quite the event! I can relate tho everything I fix on mine takes about 10 times as long as everyone says it takes. But you did it! And learned along the way. Job well done.
OP
Good, my work here is done
You know, when I got my TJ my first thought with any repair or modification was to bring it to my mechanic, that’s been my strategy my whole life. But over these past couple years as I’ve done more & more that has shifted & now when something comes up my first thought is either I can do this myself, or at least I’m gonna look into doing this myself.
On its surface replacing shocks has to be one of the simplest & most straight forward things you can possibly do, I mean you see the friggin parts right out there in the open for Christ’s sake right? We’re not talking about something buried in the engine block or tranny that actually takes knowledge & skill, it’s take bolts out, put bolts back in - like chimpanzee easy…
So this job fell immediately into the no-brainer I’m doing it myself category.
But, at least 5 times during the job I was so frustrated I bordered on quitting & calling my mechanic to finish it, he’s a great guy & would’ve gotten a great laugh at me for the mess I created; I was having so much trouble getting the right angle on the cutting wheel in the small space, getting the drill up underneath, knocking the residual bolt out… but as objectively unreasonable as it seems when you’re days into a job that should be measured in hours or even minutes there’s that part of you that just refuses to quit, I would’ve cut the Goddamned Jeep in half & before giving up.
Yup, I was commiserating with a wheeling buddy about this & he said something that made a lot of sense, something like "I no longer consider the time it takes, I measure success only by completing the job"
Its a LOT easier to access the rear shock bolts when you do this...
