Lowering front shock mount (axle end)

I am trying to keep my rig as low as possible (less than 3") and haven't been able to find many shocks that offer a decent amount of travel and a relatively short commpressed length. Most of the 11" travel shocks come out to 16"-17" or so compressed, which just won't work with very small lifts.

My idea is to lower the axle end shock mount down to the vicinity of the LCA mount bolt. This would give me about 3" extra length. The LCA axle mounts were already replaced with 3/16" thick ones, so I was thinking I could probably weld the mounting tabs directly to that.

I looked all over, and have not found any reference to this being done before. Is there a reason not to do this that I am overlooking?

Travis

ive doen the same except i boxed the control arm mounts and did alot of reinforcing. I just used a longer control arm molt to mount the shock on. This i dont think will work for non-heim jointed shocks. you might want to check out some of bilstein short bodied shocks.

AK7110SB 10" travel Short Body Reservoir 24.29" ext14.06" compressed

I did this on mine with 7" lift and the longest long ranchos, to be 5150's later. I have the conversion at the top. I welded some plate to the side of the lca mount and welded a U shaped mount to the side so the shock bolt runs front to rear instead of side to side. My first attempt I had the mount in line with the lca bolt, but ran into shock to brake line banjo bolt interferance so moved it rearward about 3 more inches. Sorry no pics right now, I could take some later tho.

Depending on what arms you are running, you can even mount them to the lower control arms themselves as many pre runners do and have seen them even on some OEM applications as well.