Broken shock screws
 

Hey, I own a 98 Jeep Cherokee 4.0 litre. I decided to change the rear shocks today, and I snapped the two screws that hold the shock to the top of the frame. My main question is, is it safe to drive it without one shock? Seeing as it's the long weekend, there are no stores open for me to get new screws to fix it. As a side not, the shock that I took off was basically shot, nothing left to it at all, so would no shock at all be any difference to the way it drove before? As well, how would you go about taking the remaining bits of screw out (eg should I just drill them out or should I attempt to somehow unscrew them-I don't know if the hole is threaded or not.) Any help would be appreciated.

I used this to fix them. Couldn't tell ya if it's ok to drive with only one or not. My GUESS is no. Leave the definitive answer to them experts.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/d...repair-556807/

you won't even notice the shock is not there.
as for removing the nuts, you can hammer them out as they are only spot welded to the top of the shock mount. or you can cut small holes in the rear floor/hatch area to access them from inside. note the shocks are mounted on each side of the axle, so they are not exactly even.

i drove a '93 for about 2 weeks with the drivers side rear out. You only really notice its not there when your going around a turn and hit a bump. Besides that i really couldnt tell it wasnt there. I would imagine it should be fixed, i fixed mine when i got time. Now if the other side lets go then you might feel like your driving a large pogo stick. It should be fine for a while if you dont have the time to get to it.

Use that method linked above!

Hell I drove around on one shock for a month after a wheeling trip before I noticed it when I was crawling around down there.

Sent from my Garminfone while fighting off ninjas

As usual, I guess wrong lol

+1 on knocking them out... just get a long punch and a hefty hammer. Mine were easy to knock out, then just fish a bolt through the hole (I used fishing line tied around the bolt) and use a nut on the shock side... tightened mine up with an air wrench. It was actually very easy to do and only took a few minutes. Good Luck

Thanks alot for the information, I got those screws out and new bolts in in less than an hour. I blasted the other side with WD-40 for a few days and they came off no problem.

Thanks to the powers that be that common sense prevailed and you DIDN'T cut holes in the floorboard that an earlier poster suggested!