RTI Improvements

Mar 1998

RTI Scores | New Shackles | Relocate Shock Mounts

RTI Scores

New Shackles

The shackles that were on the rig when I bought it were Con-Ferr HD shackles, but they were badly bent and allowed very little movement of the spring packs. Shortly after reinstalling them following the axle upgrade, I decided to replace them with the heavy duty shackles from Four Wheel Drive Hardware. Once done, this greatly improve the flexibility of the entire suspension.

Relocate Shock Mounts

After analyzing my suspention and testing it on a RTI ramp, I realized that the shocks themselvs were limiting the articulation. When I bought the RS9000s, I got them a little long because I thought I would be replacing the springs soon with something that didn't sag as much. Well, it turns out that the springs will have to wait, so I need to make do with what I have.

When I first put it up on the ramp, I noticed that shocks were severely limiting the upward travel of the axle, but that they still had pleanty of travel left at full droop. By raising the mount point on the frame, I could better center the shocks in their range and not loose travel.

My first plan was to install shock mount off of a Wagoneer like a lot of people do when they perform a springover. There was also a rescent article in Peterson's which showed how to do this. After getting a pair of shock mounts, I decided that I didn't like this approach. There were two problems:

1. The place on the frame where they would need to go was already used by the engine mounts and a bump stop. Working around these was not going to be easy.
2. The mounting pin for the upper shock eye points at the front of the vehicle instead of out the side. With the amount of travel that I wanted, this meant that the shocks would bind since the two ends could not rotate in the same plane.

Given these two factors, I decided to fabricate my own mounts ... As a first pass, I just used some 3/8" x 1" steel. I put spacers behind it to allow it to clear the fender and put a bolt in the top to form the mounting point for the shock.

Here is a picture with the lower end of the shock disconnected and rotated out of the way. Here is a picture with the shock mounted in place.

This setup worked great on the ramp, but it was not strong enough for the trail. After a day of hard wheeling, the new mounts were bent over and coming dangerously close to ripping the tires. I bent them back into position with a large hammer and a chunck of wood. I then put the shocks back on the original mounts until I can come up with a beefier way to relocate them.