Rear Upper Shock Mounting

Mike_H

autos are better - WRWD508
Supporting Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2017
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11,577
Location
Grand Rapids, MI, United States
So, I broke all 4 of my upper shock mounting bolts in the rear cross member...To be honest, after the first couple, I said eff it, and broke the rest of them off. I tried easing them out with a ratchet, putting the impact on...couldn't find my torch, so I just popped em in the interest of expediency. This is after a liberal application of Aero-Kroil, both recently and in May, when I redid my transmission. They were not coming out.

Anyway, I'm now faced with a dilemma...Should I install some sort of captive nut, use a plain bolt, or should I install bar pin eliminators. I like the BPE idea, but I'm concerned about the up travel I'll lose. I have an idea to modify the rear cross-member and make some BPE's that will place the shock in nearly the same position...which sounds cool...but I don't have limitless time.
 
I just used a plain bolt with anti-seize. Hopefully no problems in the future, but then again I'm not in a rust prone area.
 
I suppose the best, not necessarily, easiest option would be work the studs, now that the tension is off them. I'm going to prop the body up anyway, for my lift, so access is easy right now.
 
Having this same issue with my 01 TJ . New to the jeep world yet always dreamt about them. I've replaced much of the front, 3" suspension lift, frame work n body work. Much more to do.

Our solution is to cut the old flush and drill out the welded on part to fit a bolt head into that has a connected washer style head. That way we can weld to something structurally better.
 
So, I ended up cutting the welded nuts off the cross-member this weekend. I found a really nice Bar pin eliminator design online for a JK...so I'm going to make one for my TJ. Should be pretty easy with some 8 gage sheet. I should only lose about a half an inch of uptravel, which was my main concern with most of the off the market BPE parts I was finding...they were an inch or more.
 
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