Rear hatch supports
 

So I bought new lift supports from O'rielly's about a week ago. Almost immediaty the bracket that bolts to the hatch, that has the little ball on it twisted, causing the sockets on the end of the supports to pop off. The kid at orielly's is saying I put the bracket on wrong, he gave me a new pair but he isn't sure how they go on either. Does anyone know what the deal is? Is the ball supposed to point in or out?

Add a pic for clarification, please, because it is hard to make heads or tails of that, but with a pic, we can answer for ya real quick. I just replaced mine like a month ago...

bahahaha says its wrong but doesnt know how it suppose to go? Yea i dont know what your talking about, you just have to pull the retaining clips, pop off the struts and replace

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY AND TIME with the StrongArm supports. Go to RockAuto.com and order the Monroe lift struts. The StrongArms are garbage. I went through the same thing with mine. The StrongArms have plastic sockets and integrated metal bands that bend in install and allows the strut to fall off. The Monroes are the real deal OEM replacements. The sockets at each end are metal and have the proper retaining pins/clips.

i replaced mine with the strongarms and have had no issues. granted its only been about 5 months. ill take a look tomorrow, i cant remember how i installed them, but it was pretty easy as i did it on a 0 degree day and didnt spend a whole lot of time outside screwing around with it.

Pretty sure mine were O'Reilly, if not then Autozone.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...0/IMG_0086.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-C...0/IMG_0087.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...0/IMG_0088.JPG

Hope those help, didn't quite understand the question either. You just take off the old ones and put the new back on.

Sorry I don't have a camera right now... This is how I put em on seems like the right way, but look how cheesy they are, that little tab is bending already.

Dude this is going to sound very mean, but its only because I did this in 3 min with no technical knowledge. There is a clip on the support pull it back. Then there will be a hole in the end of the support. Put the ball on the jeep into the hole, and push the clip back into place. Really there is not a wrong way to do this as far as I can tell.

Also if you work at an auto parts store, and cant help with this what are you there for? Windshield wiper replacement is about up there with this.

Please dont take this the wrong way.

Replaced mine recently with ones I purchased at Oreily also. They look the same as yours. When I first put em on the clip looked like it wanted to pop off as well. I had to unbolt that bracket and turn it 180 degrees and bolt it back up. I had it bolted in backwards. Hopefully this helps. Mine have worked great ever since.

That is exactly what mine did on my '91. Take those back, they are garbage. That metal band that is bending IS the problem. The Monroes that RockAuto sells are 100% OEM for your year. The later model XJs are moderately different in the way they attach. Ill get you the P/N when I get home man. If that strut falls off while the hatch is open, you will have one hell of a headache later.

The later Xjs have a "pillowball" mount at the top so you are comparing apples to oranges there. The StrongArms for the early XJs suck. The sockets and that bendy metal band are a BAD design for something that carries so much weight.