My Shock Changing Experience

Put on four Monroe Sensa Track. I find it hard to tell the difference, except on potholes at slow speed.

The fronts were uneventful.

Everyone on here knows what happened in the rear. I would be SOL without this forum. I had read this forum extensively before doing this job, so I was expecting it. I broke off three of the bolts. The first two, I drilled out. Based on someone else's advice on this board (that I do not have the time to look up and link for you right now) -- GET A GOOD DRILL BIT. I drilled for over 40 minutes before breaking down, going to Lowe's, and getting a cobalt drill bit --- 5/16. Drilled both out in about 5 minutes. Retapped them to a 3/8 and put in two Grade 8 bolts. Perfect and relatively easy.

Second shock, one bolt came out and the other broke. I was feeling pretty good about it because I had already done this once before. Drilled and tapped and disaster. THE TAP BROKE IN THE HOLE!!! My cobalt bit had no effect on the hardened tap.

I had read on this board about people using an air hammer to knock it off. I did not have access to or experience with that, but I went back to Lowes and got a 3 lb. sledge and big azzed punch/chisel thingy. It was blue with a yellow handle and came to a point instead of a chisel-shape. Ten big whacks and the nut was standing on it's side. I put a flat head screwdriver on it (the big azzed thingy was too big to go very far into the hole) and hit it lightly and the nut pinged off. VERY RELIEVED AT THIS POINT!!

OK -- here is where you get to laugh at me. I taped the new nut on an open-end wrench (also based on advice I heard somewhere else on this board). And was easily able to hold the nut in place and tighten the bolt. However, I taped it too good. I did not have electrical tape and used clear packing tape. I had to take the bolt out and tape it again using less tape. Moreover, I did not do this once, BUT THREE TIMES. :rof: This, however, was smalll potatoes based on my previous problems.

In the end, I fought it for a long time, but I won and have new shocks on the HEEP.

The first rule of man vs machine... man must always win...

I would have burnt the tape with the torch instead of taking it apart again.

I don't even bother with tapping them anymore. I just drill them out and sneak the nuts in over the top of the rear "K" frame.

Next time use a box end wrench and use a piece of paper to wedge the nut in there.

Ron

hehe had the same problem too, i also installed the sensa tracs.there good,considering that when i grabbed the old shocks the tube fell apart in my hand...any how.i had only broken 1 single bolt on each side of the rear shocks,said f it,put new bolts and welded the shit in were the old were broken.is this ok? it has been 3 months now, and the weld is still holding up. do you think it will break eventually? thanks guys

There are two different Nut-Serts, (the nut welded onto the frame) from what I can tell, on Jeeps.

I have seen posts on this board, and also my experience with broken bolts on my brothers wrangler, that you can just hammer out a bad nut-sert, either air hammer or sledge and chisel.

I have seen posts on this board, and also my experience with my '95 XJ, where and hour with an air chisel will nut budge the nut-cert.

In the cases of the ones I hammered out easily, they looked like regular nuts, just little spot weld marks around the edges. In the cases of the ones I could NOT hammer out, even with air tools, they looked like blocks of iron, about 3 times the size of the same sized nut, that was tapped in the center.

SO, just keep it in mind, you may have a NUT-CERT that will pop right out with some hammering, you may have a NUT-CERT that is a monster and will have to cut a hole in the floor to get to the back side and grind it away.

I also broke 3 out of 4, drilled and clean out with a tap on 2 of the 3, and the final one, I got off center and made a mess of it. I had to cut a hole in the floor to get to the back side, and still couldn't chisel it out, I ended up grinding it down with a die-grinder and welding on a new nut (since I already had a hole open in the floor) then welding a patch panel on the floor.

When I put the new shocks in, I liberally applied Blue Lock-Tite on the bolts. The idea being, it would seal out the weather and prevent the new bolts/nuts from rusting together and breaking again.

It seems to work, I've noticed I have never had an underbody bolt seize/rust up, that has had lock-tite applied to it. Sure, a little effort to get apart from the lock-tite, but it comes apart with NO rust, just a blue coat from the loc-tite.

Since you just did this do you have some links to some goos shock installs and how to fix it when the bolts break. Im going to be doing the rears on my 98 and want to be prepared, maybe I'll be fine but im gonna PB blast them a week before I do it. Any other advice ?