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Front shock problem & sye driveshaft questions.

Swamper35

NAXJA Forum User
88 xj with a non disco front D30. I am running clayton short arms and 4.5" Re springs. The shocks are superlift cheapo's and the problem I am having is that the lower shock bushings only last about 2 weeks . The 2 weeks would not be very many miles, maybe 300-500 max. Is it the cheap shocks or is my junk out of wack?

While making a post I also figured I would ask about my rear shaft. I am running a 231 with a sye and a stock front drive shaft which I had lengthened. Now the question is how much inward movement should the slip joint have when the jeep is just sitting on its own weight? Right now there is about an inch of the small shaft in the slip joint showing and I am worried that it is not enough.
 
Are you using the steel insert in the lower shock bushings? On the rear the drive shaft extends as the suspension compresses and retracts as the suspension droops. I think you are fine with 1" exposed.
 
The front shocks are hooked up the way they would be from the factory.. the steel lower pin and two bolts.

So as my suspension compresses that slip joint extends?

I would think that it would be the other way around... as the rear end travels closer to the truck it would shorten the distance between the yoke on the t-case and the yoke on the rear end.. I'm only running 31" ltb's and I can stuff them front and back.

I guess as far as the drive shaft is concerned , I was worried that it would bottom out and have who knows what effects on other parts that it is conected to.
 
think of the front of the leaf to the axle as a control arm, it will get farther away as it compresses until the suspension compresses past the point where control arm(front half of leaf) is horizontal. make sense?
 
Ahhh I get it now! Ok so with that said the drive shaft will only shorten up when the rear is on the droop side of the flex and 1" of available driveshaft compression should be enough.

So back to my shock question now that I have that cleared up. I still can't figure why my shock bushings are wearing so bad.
 
Cheap shocks have bar pins, or the factory bottom mount. These can make the shock tube and bushing bounce back and forth along the bar pin as the shocks compress and extend. Making them wear prematurely like you have stated. JKS makes bar pin eliminators that squeeze the rubber bushings from the sides, thus keeping them still. The Bilstein 5100's on my Jeep have the bushings melted onto the bar pin, keeping it from shifting back and forth. So better shocks(Bilstein is the only one I know of, maybe Old Man Emu) or bar pin eliminators would fix your problem. That's my idea. -Josh
 
As for the shocks,take a good look at the bottom mounting angle.Are you running short arms at that lift?
 
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