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Removing rear shocks on a 99 XJ

N

newjeepowner

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Roseville, MI
When I got prices for someone to install a lift kit he gave me an install price and then also quoted a price if the rear shocks bolts broke off. He said it was very common occurence and it would cost another $80. if that happened. Is this a typical problem? Any way around it? Maybe lots of penetrant and heating the bolts?
 
It IS a fairly common problem. Penetrant just doesn't help much here because it can't really get where it needs to. The 2 upper bolts per shock are the ones. You can't see the nuts b/c they are tack welded inside the body. Penetrant will just drip off the bolt head. I broke one of mine and went in through the floor to replace it. Not particularly hard but a bit time consuming.
 
you can pretty much count on them breaking off. It is very very common and you would actually be very lucky and rare if they DIDN"T break. there are differen't ways to fix them so i would recommend you search (some cut holes in the rear floor, some drill it out and some try to bust the nutwelds by beating the old nut out). figure out what method he plans to do not that you end up surprised to see holes cut in your trunk :) Do a search on broken bolts and you'll turn up lots of good info. the fact this guy knows the bolts break is actually a comfort that this guy has messed with our jeeps and probably knows his stuff pretty well. he's not trying to ream you on a bogus charge. i've never heard of what anyone charges to deal with it but i can assure you its not a fun task. I honestly spent about an hour under the jeep trying to drill out my old bolts with used drill bits. I then went to ace hardware and bought some new 4 dollar drill bits and proceeded to drill them out in minutes.
 
mine broke, it sucked!! I would say $80 extra wouldn't be over charging you considering how much extra time and effort it took me.
 
I had a mechanic tell me he didn't even want to bother with it at $75/hr. I got it done myself, but it was a huge pain. Then I read about some simpler ways of doing it like punching the broken bolts/welded nuts up and out. Then thread new bolts down through the holes.
 
Crawl under there and take a look at them, and/or give me a try. I have an '88 that spend some time in the snow. The rear shocks were rusted pretty bad but the bolts came out no problem.

I agree, if the guy knows there is a good chance of them breaking, it is a sign that he has some experience with XJ's If he has a good solution for the fix, $85.00 is probably a fair price coming from a shop.
 
There's nothing wrong with that price, considering if they break, he will need to drill for hours and retap the holes.

You could get under there yourself, blast the bolts with penetrating oil, then easily try to tighten the bolts, then loosen easily, then tighten, loosen, etc....keep adding pressure with each try - they might loosen up.

Most likely, all 4 will break...
 
He said if they broke then he would air chisel the nuts out. Then tack 4 new nuts on the end of a thin rod. Then take and feed the nut through the hole and hold it until he can get the shock bolts started.
 
Just try and take them out after spraying some penetrating oil on it. if one breaks on one shock try the other. Chances are they will break, but it isnt half as hard as some make it sound. I just broke mine off(not by choice) and then air hammered the old nuts. They popped right out and then i just got some new nuts and bolts and put some electrical tape on the closed end of a wrench and held the nuts in place between the body panels and bolted them up. Really simple, took maybe 15 minutes....the only downfall to that is when I go to put new shocks on I will have to do it again. I wouldnt waste time cutting up the floor boards, nor would I pay someone 80 for 15 minutes of work. Good luck
 
I had Sears replace my shocks, they had a free install deal going on. Plus Monroe had a buy three get on free deal. I drove the jeep home and the next day one of the shock bolts broke. They fixed it for free and replaced the shock as well as the mount was a bit bent. They drilled it out and put a bolt and nut on it. My jeep is a 99 as well. I thought that was very cool of them. However, I was also buying tires from them as well the day they fixed it.
 
chelms27 said:
tape on the closed end of a wrench and held the nuts in place between the body panels and bolted them up. Really simple, took maybe 15 minutes....the only downfall to that is when I go to put new shocks on I will have to do it again. I wouldnt waste time cutting up the floor boards, nor would I pay someone 80 for 15 minutes of work. Good luck
Click to expand...

X2

only I drilled out the brocken bolts, wish I had air tools but it was not hard to drill them out
 
My 99 spent a good bit of it's life up in NY, and I didn't have any problems getting the old rear shocks out after my lift....but maybe i'm just "rare and lucky"
 
2 of the 4 broke off on mine. 1 on each shock. Personally I thought that this was one of the easiest problems to deal with considering all of the other ones I ran into when installing my lift. I just drilled new holes and put in a new bolt with some washers and have had no complaints since.
 
All 4 of mine broke off. After trying to drill, extract, re-tap, and all that tedious stuff, I used the air hammer to knock off the captive nuts method--it worked great! It took me maybe one minute to blast off all 4 nuts. Used new 10-9 bolts, nuts and washers, very easy. I bought the air hammer on sale at Harbor Freight for an unbelievable $8.88. The new bolts were more expensive.
 
I was also one of the rare-lucky ones. Rear shock bolts came off with no problems on my 87. Or is this only a problem with the later XJs? I reinstalled with antiseize just in case though.
 
Ijust dealt with this last night. Only 1 of 4 though. I beat the bolt (what was left) with a small 3# sledge. I was trying to loosen it but ended up busting the nut off. Pulled it out with a retractable magnet then put a nutsert in the hole and all is good. took 30 minutes. I refuse to cut up the floor!!!
 
Yea don't cut the floor. Get somne good cobalt bits if you have to drill out the bolts. As many have already said they will break. Get some PB Blaster and soak them for about a month that may help. But I doubt it.
 
This was one of the largest concerns of mine before I put on my lift kit. As it turned out, I broke all 4 of my bolts during the install. I oiled up my bolts for a few weeks before I attempted to remove them. Waste of oil.

Fortunately, breaking the bolts did not prove to be a difficult fix at all. Quite easy, in fact. I had the new grade 8 hardware already at hand in case I broke them. I used my large 20" punch (any long pointy metal object would work) and a hefty hand sledge. Three whacks each and the broken bolts were free.

I taped the new bolts thread side down to my open end wrench and used that to feed the bolt through the open areas 2-3 inches away from the bolt holes. Look carefully and you'll see them.

Easy as pie. That turned out to be the easier fix to my lift install.

Do not cut the floor. Do not drill and tap the holes. You'll be fine if you do a search and locate pics of the process. Good luck.
 
Mine were ridiculously rusty and I ended up having to cut my floor. Really there's nothing wrong with it providing you primer and paint the resulting edges properly. I got a bunch of s*** from people around here for cutting the floor, but whatever, job's done. Tried an air hammer but it just couldn't pop the welds. It seems the fasteners used by Jeep regularly changed, as mine were large, wide, and flat, and the welds were tough as hell. I just used a dremel to cut them all off... If you end up going this route, I have a thread around here on this subject. J
 
I would recomend getting "Bar Pin Eliminators". Chances are the next time you change your shocks...... it'll happen again. They're worth the money.
 
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