so im looking to replace my shocks, but i heard its a PITA with these xj's. Hear horror stories of people breaking bolts and what not. Any ideas or advice before i start? Thanks.

 

PB Blaster. And a lot of it

 

X2 on my first lift I blasted it a few weeks prior and about once a week till I started. Used an extension and ratchet and had no problems but I was lucky

 

After breaking one, I just broke the rest with an impact. Replacing them is easy. There have been lots of threads about this. A search will explain how it's done.

 

Or you can take the rear sway bar mounting brackets off the axle, replace the bar pin in the shock with a tube, and bolt the shocks to the bracket. Then weld the bracket to the body where the bolts were. I've done this many times, and you never have to worry about broken bolts again!

 

And if all else fails with the upper bolts in the rear, and you don't want to go through the trouble of drilling out the broken bolts, you can always go with these bad boys

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JEEP-CHEROKE...59477779665487

 

If you do snap the bolts you can do what I did and drill them out, get bolts and washers that are about the same size but a little longer, get a wire then tie it to the end of the bolt with a washer on it, fish the wire up though the unibody out the hole you drilled out, then pull the bolt through the backside, put your shock up in place, then run washer/nut on the bolts then tighten down, you will have to grab the end of the bolt with pliers or vise grips so it doesn't spin when you tighten the nuts, F all that tapping the hole BS !



If you cant picture what I'm saying, I'll get a pic posted when I get home .

 

PB blast and tighten them a hair prior to removal.

I have had some luck tightening them to break up the dirt some. But most of the time they just snap off.

 

Did mine, all four, about a year and a half. Soaked everything in WD40 and they all came off, no proble. Replaced all four shocks in about hour and a half.

 

I just did mine last week and ran into this issue. I soaked them in PB Blaster for a few days but it didn't take much to snap the bolts. In a thread I read about this someone referred to them as being "made of butter" and I'd say that's a pretty accurate description. If I were you I'd approach it expecting it to happen and if it doesn't consider yourself lucky. I did just as 360 suggested above and drilled them out then ran some new bolts with lock washers through the top with a piece of wire and some fishing line, then washers and nuts on the bottom. It's a little bit of a pain but it's not too bad.

 

X2

 

do these work on the 97-01 cherokee's?

 

The description on ebay does say its compatible

 

Lets keep this thread on topic if you see spam just report it.

Thanks.

 

Rather than drill them out I found it much easier to punch them out with an air chisel.