2 Big Broncos Rocky Mountain Site
Relocated Rear Shock Mounts
The Bronc, like all Ford trucks and SUV's, had a real problem with the shock mounts hanging way below the rear axle tube. At the stock ride height, there's not much that can be done about this problem without fabricating custom upper mounts and messing up the stock shock geometry. With six inches of lift, however, I had plenty of room to move the lower shock mount up out of harms way.
This picture shows how low the stock shock mount hangs below the axle. The new
shock mount raised the mounting point about 3 1/2 inches.
Here is the relationship between the stock shock mount and the new shock mount.
I moved the location straight up. One thing I found after the installation is
that the new mounts should be twisted slightly towards the outside of the truck.
This mount may bind slightly at full compression. I also clearanced the sides of
the new mount after this picture was taken. The body of the shock would just
barely hit the mount at full twist.
I fabricated two new mounts out of 2x2x1/4 wall square tube. On one end of the tube I simply cut out one side of the tube and ground it for clearance around the shock mount. On the other end, I radiused the sides of the square tube to match the diameter of the axle tube. When it was done, I had about three inches of surface to weld on both sides of the square tube. With the square tube installed, the shock is spaced about 1 1/2 inches from the axle tube and in line with the center line of the axle. It could be mounted higher than this, but I think finding a shock to fit the application may be a problem due to the short compression stroke.
Two pictures from the same angle. The first shows the initial welding before the
lower mount was ground off, the second shows the final install. My welding still
sucks, but axle tube is tough to weld on anyway. This project is what prompted
me to make my gas tank skid plate. All this
welding and cutting is right under the gas tank. The old leaky tank was
preventing me from doing a lot of this work.
My test will be big rocks. I know that occasionally a rock will hit the shock mount, but it shouldn't hit the shock. I've torn shocks apart with the stock mounts pretty readily. These mounts should protect the shock. I may need to add a ramp from the bottom of the shock mount to the bottom of the tube to encourage the axle to slide over rocks that hit the shock mounts, but I'll let time and experience decide when it needs to be done.