Saturday, July 26, 2014

Land Rover shock mount relocate, Rocky Mountain helper spring install

Well, it has been a while that I have been driving my 109 with the ROAM disc brake conversion. I did have the shock interference issue with the brake caliper banjo bolt. The problem is the bolt hits the shock in a turn and can damage the shock or cause the bolt to unscrew. It only happens with thicker aftermarket shocks, not the stock ones. I have the procomp 9000 model shocks.
Here is a pic of the damage on my LH shock;

So I have been waiting for ROAM to make good and give me new shock mounts like they did to other customers, BUT they went out of business and even though the owner tried, Timm failed to deliver.
Just telling it like it is Timm.
Next comes the news that the Timm Cooper disc brake conversion is being manufactured by a new business Forbyn Bros.  www.forbynbros.com  The owner Greg Forbyn posted up on the Guns and Rovers forum so I got in contact with him. He designed new shock mounts and sold me a set $60+ $20 shipping. They arrived on Tuesday. I was concerned with the small(to me) welds and the shape of the plate(1/2") holding up to the cycling of the shocks over time. I told him so and he assured me they would be OK.
    I am a skeptic by nature so when I got mine I took them to my welder Daren and he looked at them and agreed with Greg, should be fine, then to assuage my fears he added another bead over the orginal one.
    I don't have a pic of the orginal welds but here is the new ones once I cleaned them up and put rust converter on them;



Then I put 2 coats of the Duplicolor truck bed liner'

Once it dried for 2 days I tackled the job. Replace the shock mounts and add a helper spring which Jeremy at Rocky Mountain recommended. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to jack up my front end on my uneven rocky drive. I eventually figured out how to get the front up with wood blocks and jack stands.

I was able to put a bottle jack under the swivel housing and undo the spring U-bolts. The axle didn't stay located over the pin and caused some rough going on reinstalling.
Here's what I put on on each side;

I freaked out a little bit when I held the helper spring up to the spring pack as it didn't conform to the shape. I finally just put it on and tightened the pin bolt and the spring flattened and went on fine. I really had to jack up the axle to get the new longer pin in. The pin turns by itself in the spring pack and I had to use a vise grips to hold it while both undoing and putting in the new one.


Once the pin was in I lowered the axle, that is when it gave me problems. The pin and the locating hole in the axle did not line up, the hole was aft of the pin. I couldn't just push it forward, it wouldn't budge, not even with a prybar. So what I did was hook my 1 ton come-a-long to the lifting eye on my winch and pulled the axle forward. Worked a treat! Had to do it on both sides.
Below is the new and the old shock mounts.

Here's some finished pictures;



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