shock came loose?

went on a light duty bogging/trail ride 2 weeks ago, and didn't notice a damn thing wrong during clean-up, inspection afterward. this morning, i go to work and i hear a rattling coming from the front pass side... the shock is collapsed and the bushings, capture washers, nut and boot are just gone from the top of the passenger side front shock. it's hanging in the wheel well from the bottom. what could have caused this? i've got a 3 inch lift and everything else is tight. i'm needing a quick replacement now, cause it's my dd... 4wp has pro-comp explorer es9k for $43, any experience with pro-comp shocks here?

At a guess, I'd say your shocks were too short, and they acted as droop limiters when you got twisted up. If the nut on top wasn't fully tight, enough to really squeeze those rubber donuts, that might have allowed the nut to strip due to a dynamic load.

When you put in new ones, you should probably double-nut them.

ah, gotcha. thanks for the tip!
i've installed several sets of shocks in other rigs, but i don't know much about troubleshooting shocks. this one has zero push on the piston... ie, there's resistance to pushing/pulling piston in/out, but the shock is not pushing the piston out/up. when the nut came off, the piston dropped out of the top mount. is this a blown shock? i've come across the term duel resistance, but i've never actually held one in my hand to know the difference. there's some shock talk here, but i didn't find anything that might tell me if this is symptomatic of another problem, or just a failure?

I never heard the term dual resistance, but all shocks resist both compression and extension. (In shock absorber parlance, compression is "jounce" and extension is "rebound.") There are probably variations, but in general shocks for street vehicles are calibrated about 50/50 -- equal resistance to jounce and rebound. By contrast, the shocks used on the front of drag race cars are 90/10, to allow the front to rise quickly and transfer weight to the rear wheels.

A gas-charged shock will extend itself when released. A hydraulic shock without the gas charge will not. But even a hydro shock will have resistence to compression -- take off the top nut and it should stay where it is until/unless you push it down. If it just falls down -- yeah, it's blown.

thanks again!
i think the term i was thinking of is double acting/action.
http://www.partsamerica.com/Auto101susp1.asp
i think that's were i was reading about it...
since this is my dd, and my previous car is parked without insurance, can i drive my xj for a couple of days without that shock on? is that safe?