What have you broken on pre-runs?
Um... Tore off my LCA axle mount and LCA, UCA mount on the axle, numerous shock mounts front and rear upper and lowers (rear upper broke and then came on up into the jeep to say HI), swaybar links (before JKS), and every shock that has ever been on my jeep except the 7100s, usually melted them and had the insides fall out although some snapped shafts and eyes off also. Broke stock motor mount. Tweeked my pass-side knuckle where the drag link attaches on one hard hit. My exhaust welds suck enough that they keep snapping on big hits. The amazing thing is that after about 2 years of prerunning, chasing, and just screwing around and driving way to fast when camping, and after all of the other damage, I've never blown a tire. BFGs seem favored in the desert and my A/Ts have been amazing. Before them I had Dueler A/Ts and went through 6 of those in one year with easier driving (only paid for balancing thanks to road hazard). My typical approach is to reinforce before something breaks. It's a lot easier to reinforce something still on the jeep than to pick it up off the ground pound it straight weld it back on and then reinforce it. The only thing I haven't beefed yet is the rear suspension mounts and I need to get on that before they go. I've seen jeepspeeds whose leaf spring mounts bust and the end of the spring usually tears a large hole in the floor.
Do you run stock bumpstops?
I do. I swapped the rears out for a while but went back to the stock ones because they work well enough and gave me more bump travel. Like you, I didn't think they would compress that much. When I was cycling my front end after putting some new shock mounts on, I bottomed out the front and with just the weight of the car resting on the front stops they were almost compressed to the metal. Maybe had a 1/4", at the most. I figure if just the weight would do that, any hit off road would probably compress them that last little bit. I am running the stock stops up front... till someone buys me hydraulic ones. I think that if I had the money (about $1000 for T&J's in SoCal to set you up), I would really think about a nice set of bypass shocks instead. Guys who don't run hydraulic will usually run something like the ACOS (sp?) up front with a stiffer, but as low-profile as possible stop, and a thinner hard poly stop in the rear. I think this is mainly because their suspension travel limits are measured from metal to metal and so the thicker the stop, the more travel you give up. Many of the prerunners and play/chase vehicles run the daystar or something similar.
I saw the picture of the sway bar links and thought of something else. I run the JKS now (RE drove me nuts and then gave up the ghost), and yes, they have a rubber spherical joint at both ends. I have the 4-6" lift version setup as short as I can and 2" of front bumpstop extension. When I bottomed out, the nut on the top of the top of the links dented and eventually punched holes on the inside of the wheel well. I saw it as my jeep doing a little self-clearance. If yours are much longer, you will have to watch for this. I doubt your axle will travel as far up as mine since you have much larger tires (37"s right?), but just though you should know.
I've been thinking about swapping my steering over like many of you guys, and moving my trackbar accordingly, but I have had time to see if it comes to close to the oil pan or not when bottomed out. Again though, you probably have more than 2" of bumpstop spacers in, but it's something to think about.
Are you running your rear shocks up through your bed? The motion ratio would be so much better. Once I have enough guts to start cutting holes in my 99 I will cage it and run some 16-18" sway-a-ways though the floor. Luckily the rear doesn't carry the weight the front does so even with my shocks laid down under the floor and stiffened up from the original 255/70, they still don't get as and fade like the fronts to.
With my set up, I have about 12" of travel up front (7up 5down), and a little over 14" in the rear (about 8.5up and 6down... oh ya, I'm running a full s-10 blazer leaf pack that measures about 57" eye-eye). It RARELY bottoms hard enough that I feel it, but I always have to drive home and prerun accordingly.
Anyways, I'm sure everyone else is bored.
Marcus