Frankenstein's monster?

[sbninja]

Good morning all!.
I went wheeling yesterday on at an off road park, I went on a guided ride - blue trails(lotsa rocks, and deep mud holes and some bowls) Had a great time My jeep handled beautifully!(with the front locker ) could be a little higher with bigger tires, but I'm working on that

One of the jeeps in the group (around twenty in total) 'Popped a spring', (I have never heard this term before) The guide asked, over the CB, 'What kinda spring?, leaf or coil? --Coil. We went back to see the problem, It was a nice looking TJ , Bigger than mine It looked like he was running 35's.

Upon inspection, the rear driver side spring was hanging over toward the rear, popped off the top spring perch and the shock was also hanging off, leaning toward the rear, the shock was still mounted on the lower shock mount, but the bar pin up top was bent and pulled right out of the two bolts up top.

The trail guide looking intently at the mess, asked the owner, "what's that?",
"Oh, I installed a Tri-link". I noticed that the bump stop on that side was missing. I told the guy that, and he said , that he removed both bumpstops, ohhh

Also looked like he had some coil spacers on top of taller than stock springs, a pretty low transercase drop. It seemed evident that by removing the bumpstops, probably thinking to get the most amount of flex out of his new tri link, that he(not knowingly) used the shocks as his limiting factor. I dont thnk this was a good idea.

We jacked the back end up and remounted the spring, and bungied the shock(not being used anymore), he waned to continue on the trail.
Later on he need to be towed out because his engine shut down(his spring was hanging down under the axle) , didn't get the final story on this, but they thought that maybe the fuel line was kinked.

A lot of of us want to build trail ready rigs, lift, tires ect....and try and save as much money as possible in the process, That's great, nothing wrong with that!

But when piecing together your own lift, and other components on your own, do as much research as possible before attempting such things. This forum is a great venue for research ----ie. 'will this work?' , 'what do I need'... Cause rushing into things(can get too exciting at times ) can cause a break down on the trail, because of a simple thing, and ruin a real nice day for others in your group.

This poor guy stopped the ride twice, because of a lack of basic understaning of how a rear suspension works in a TJ.

Just because Dr. Frankenstein built his masterpiece out of odd parts, doesn't mean we can succesfully build our rigs without prior knowledge Remember, he was a doctor

[fyrdude]

aww dude, you know to take a camera on rides with you... this would have been a beter story with pics

[sbninja]

Originally Posted by fyrdude

aww dude, you know to take a camera on rides with you... this would have been a beter story with pics

Yeah, I know I didn't get any pics of the 'Popped spring' jeep. But I got a couple of others, I'll post later, when I get my camera out of the jeep

[Bucket110]

that is a great post, but....most suspensions are limited by the shocks....i know mine is. and its working fine with a tri-link as well. im willing to bet the guys biggest problem was that he removed the rear swaybar and didn't have bumpstops. but more than likely it was a fluke because his barpin broke.

[ProfessorCRX]

And if you're not gonna do research, follow the instructions! There's no reason he should have removed the bumpstops if the instructions didn't tell him to.

[mookarma]

Originally Posted by Bucket110

that is a great post, but....most suspensions are limited by the shocks....i know mine is.

what are the chances that on a suspension limited by the shocks the bar-pins will rip out? seems like a shock isn't something you'd want holding all that weight. . i've had my shocks hold the weight before, but it would seem to me that they wouldn't last long doing that?

[sbninja]

Originally Posted by Bucket110

that is a great post, but....most suspensions are limited by the shocks....i know mine is. and its working fine with a tri-link as well. im willing to bet the guys biggest problem was that he removed the rear swaybar and didn't have bumpstops. but more than likely it was a fluke because his barpin broke.

Actually , no, his bar pin did not break. There was enough force pulling on it that it bent and slipped out from the bolts.