My 79 f150 keeps breaking rear upper shock mounts. I am using rancho rs5000 shocks on a 3" lift. The mounts have broken a couple times, I had them welded back together but they broke again in a different spot. Where can I find replacements or heavier duty mounts? Are the shocks the cause of the breakage? This happens during normal driving.
Thanks in advance.

jake

 

My guess is the shocks are too long and bottoming out causing the upper mount to break.

 

Only one side is broken, and this happens when driving on normal roads. The shocks are midway in their travel with the truck on the ground. I am wondering if it's the shocks being too stiff or the mount being too weak. Any one else had this problem?

jake

 

Yeah, broke the driver's side some time ago, what I did was used a kicker shock mount, the one that would be mounted on the frame of a kicker set-up. Used these on the inside of the frame just forward of the existing mounts, couple of reasons for this, easier, didn't have to get rid of the one good mount, this gave the shock a little more length from mount to mount when installed, looks like it's more or less centered on the stroke now. This also allows you to use an eye-eye mounted shock, lot more choices than with the stud. The move also changed the ratio of the movement in that the shock doesn't travel quite as much as it does in the stock position relative to suspension movement, not much though. One other benefit is that it moves the shock body away from the axle, mine was real close. When placing the mount, I used steel spacers (like the ones that go in the shock eye)to get me out the 1/2" - 3/4" that is needed to line 'em up, these had to be angled slightly so I cut the angle in the spacer and used the larger to space and the smaller to keep the bolt head at 90 deg. on the other side of the mount plate. Tack welded the peices onto the plate, used a grinder to make sure it would sit flush at the angle needed. Thru bolted with lock washers and loc-tite grade 8 hardware. That's worked for many years for me. What I'm tryin' now is a frame mounted crossbar with tab mounts, I want to use this for a dual shock set-up as well as a traction bar that I want to mount from there to the top of the rear (if the angles are close!). You could look at some newer trucks to see if the mounts would be close to what you have and grind off the old and bolt on the new-I think anything from our era trucks are going to have the same rust problem. Good luck with whatever you decide to do!