Rough Country shock mount breaks factory shock mount...

I have two Grand Cherokees, the second one came with a 4" long travel Rough Country (RC) lift and a blown motor - this one is burgundy.

The rear of my truck was factory springs with 2" spacers, so it sagged compared to the front which had new 4" springs.

I borrowed the rear 4" springs, shocks, and shock mounts from the burgandy one while I saved $$ for the engine replacement in the burgundy one.

The RC shocks are low end hydraulic units, cool looking enough, but also fatter by a bit than the stockers. Combine that with wide tires at OEM wheel offsets, and rubbing is guaranteed. 

You get this bracket (black, RCX), and move the shock to the inner side of the shock mount. There's a spacer to go in the shock bracket, and a longer bolt. The shock is upside down in this shot (not my truck).

I get what RC was trying to do, but they didn't make it.

I lost 2 shock bolts that vibrated out with the RC shock mounts, and that should have said something. Both were on the left rear, but the right rear would become loose. All over just a few thousand miles. 

Loose bolts allow hammering, and hammering breaks things. You can see the break is rusty, so it's been broken for a while. What's interesting is that the mount breaks are TEAR breaks, suggesting that the suspension is topping out against the shock. This truck doesn't get jumped.

Seeing as the shock broke loose a mile from my house after a banging over a couple of speedbumps, that's concerning. It's an RC shock and and RC spring; it shouldn't be topping out over speedbumps.

Note to self: stretch this out and take a look at whether it's topping out or not. Because this shock/spring combo is going back on the burgandy truck and that would be bad. Fixing one was more than I wanted to do.

Fortunately this is an easy fix. For some reason, the pic quality is low, and the fuzziness makes the welds look worse than they are. Don't mistake it, they're not great, but they are serviceable. This truck is going to get coil overs in the future, and this fix will certainly last that long. Time to practice up again. I used to be pretty good at this.

This one looks bad on the outside for sure. LOL Looked good when I was under the truck grinding it flat for the shock. Must have been tired.

One more excuse offered - my shop at my current house. Needed to run power through the window as there is no outlet on the outside and extension cords reduce welder efficiency.

Better than new because the metal thickness has been doubled. Let's see how it holds up!

Truck #5 - it will be a Jack of All Trades, Master of ALL!

After having my 4Runner locked up in divorce jail for over 2 years, I finally had the means to replace it.

Scanning Craigslist, I found a 2004 WJ Grand Cherokee Special Edition. It was charcoal, black/grey interior, CLOTH (no leather!!) and all the power goodies, but the seatbacks used a hand lever and the climate control was the less problematic version.

With no intent to buy it, I set out to look at it. It came with a cracked windshield, and - tho lifted - the tires rubbed when turned. While they said 285/75R16 on the sidewall, they were considerably shorter than those on the 4Runner - which measured a true 33". But it ran good, drove well, and - most importantly - only had 105K on the clock. The stereo was obviously upgraded (not just the deck) though the rear amp/speaker box were missing. They just take up space, so that was fine by me. The V8 made this much better to drive than my 2000 Cherokee (4.0 six) was.

The price started out higher than I wanted, but I found myself talking to a motivated seller and the price soon reached "If I don't buy this, I'm going to kick myself for years" levels. We struck a deal, money and title exchanged hands, and I was now the new, proud owner of my 5th offroad truck.

What had I done? LOL


Over the next few weeks, I found myself driving that truck everywhere. I've racked up 20K without trying. It's a great truck.

It came with about a 3" lift in the front and 2" spacers in the back.

Here's the vision and what I plan to be building - it needs to be a vehicle that will
- maintain creature comforts (AC, PW, PDL, etc.)
- perform very well on paved roads, including twisty roads.
- perform very well at high speed on race-level surfaces offroad
- perform very well when doing low speed offroad trips (rock crawling, etc.)
- seat 5
- pack all their gear in the back
- get reasonable MPG (15 or better in town, ideally 19+ highway)
- be reasonably fast

I'm sure I'll add to this list as I go, but that's what I've learned I like from my past trucks.
Happily, I still have the winch that graced 4 of them.

The blog starts well after the work did, so I have some catchup to do!