Lifting your lower rear shock mounts on a patrol
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 12:51 pm
G'day guys,
I've had a few people ask me how to lift up the shock mounts on the rear diff. Well there are two ways you can do it. You can cut the mount off completely and then weld on some new ones that can be purchased at a few of the fab shops around the scene or you can do it really easily with just an angle grinder and a welder and the original mounts.
First of all you need to jack the rear diff up and put it on chassis stands. Then remove the wheels and the shocks.
Then you'll have a diff that looks like this.
You can see the backing plate that the shock pushes against. This is going to be your marker. Draw a line around the mount level with the top of this backing plate and parallel to the ground. Then cut the mount off along this line like this.
Now you want to do this to both sides. Once both sides are cut off you turn them upside down and then place each mount on the opposite side of the diff like this.
Now you'll have to take a little bit of metal out of the cut off section to get it to fit nicely but once that is done you can just weld it in place and then clean it up and paint it. This will take around 2 hours to complete and will lift the shocks up level with the lower trailing arms and out of harms way.
Just a note for people that are going to triangulate the trailing arms or use an 'A' frame. The shock mounts are not mounted in the same place on each side of the diff. The left hand side is only 50mm from the hub while the right hand side is 95mm from the hub. This is done because of the Panhard rod and the way it reacts with the diff so they have moved the left hand side closer to the hub to try and counter this. If you are going to modify the suspension so you can remove the panhard then you need to move one of the shock mounts so they are linear otherwise your rear suspension will not react in a linear action.
Hope this helps.
I've had a few people ask me how to lift up the shock mounts on the rear diff. Well there are two ways you can do it. You can cut the mount off completely and then weld on some new ones that can be purchased at a few of the fab shops around the scene or you can do it really easily with just an angle grinder and a welder and the original mounts.
First of all you need to jack the rear diff up and put it on chassis stands. Then remove the wheels and the shocks.
Then you'll have a diff that looks like this.
You can see the backing plate that the shock pushes against. This is going to be your marker. Draw a line around the mount level with the top of this backing plate and parallel to the ground. Then cut the mount off along this line like this.
Now you want to do this to both sides. Once both sides are cut off you turn them upside down and then place each mount on the opposite side of the diff like this.
Now you'll have to take a little bit of metal out of the cut off section to get it to fit nicely but once that is done you can just weld it in place and then clean it up and paint it. This will take around 2 hours to complete and will lift the shocks up level with the lower trailing arms and out of harms way.
Just a note for people that are going to triangulate the trailing arms or use an 'A' frame. The shock mounts are not mounted in the same place on each side of the diff. The left hand side is only 50mm from the hub while the right hand side is 95mm from the hub. This is done because of the Panhard rod and the way it reacts with the diff so they have moved the left hand side closer to the hub to try and counter this. If you are going to modify the suspension so you can remove the panhard then you need to move one of the shock mounts so they are linear otherwise your rear suspension will not react in a linear action.
Hope this helps.