Push down real hard on the bumper from the exterior of the vehicle and let go. It should go down, come back up. A visual inspection should reveal a dry shock--no fluid leaking out of them and generally in-tact. No cracks, obvious damage, or a lot of wear from rubbing by improperly sized tires.

If the shocks are toast, it will continue to bounce up and down a bit. Same thing when you're driving. Hitting a pothole should jounce the vehicle real good, but it should be done moving up and down after you hit the pothole.

Describe what you mean "it rides like shit".

Does it track all over the road?
Does it ride too stiff?

Stock shocks are generally softer than what an aftermarket shock would give you. My thought is similar to above--either it's riding ridiculously hard because of the stiffer springs OR...there's an uncorrected geometry issue, if "riding like shit" = a lot of tracking and flightiness.

 

Ok hitting any pot holes at slows speeds makes the steering wheel shack so bad it hard to hold on to. The bumps I can feel
Them all. I feel like if u drove over a quarter I could feel it. Very stiff ride. It's a 2.5 sky jacker value flex lift with hydro shocks. Only 9000 miles on it.

 

I'd lower the air pressure in the tires first, as others have suggested. For the heck of it, you should also loosen and retorque all your LCA's and track bars while the vehicle is on its suspension. If the ride is too stiff, you can just swap out your coils for different ones like ones from TF or RK. Shocks shouldn't be responsible for your stiff ride, as the shocks just keep your springs from rebounding and bouncing all over the place when going down the road. Stiffness would be in the coils and tire pressure.

 

The springs support the weight of the vehicle and determine the feel being either soft or harsh. The shocks dampen the oscillation or up/ down movement and to a point have some effect of quality of ride. They both work together, but the springs play a dominate roll in ride quality.

Check your shocks by bouncing the corners one at a time. Put weight on it and then release, don't touch the jeep. It should rise back to level and stop. If it continues to bounce up and down, then you have a bad shock.

From what your saying, the springs have no movement. Driving over a quarter will make the jeep jitter. Like the springs are solid blocks of steel with zero rebound. That will affect steering since your jeep is basically not in control. It's kind of like those old electric football players. The road is moving up and down, but your tires can not make constant contact with the moving road.

 

What you described definitely sounds like too stiff of a spring. As already mentioned, running your tires a bit softer but within good range can help--but only a little. You don't want to run them too low, either.

But the steering wheel shake is a bit concerning, especially since there's a stabilizer on there even on stock Jeeps. If you're taking it into a shop let them know about it.

 

Well I hope I don't have to buy new springs but I think I'm going to have to. Now I looked up a lift from jk for a 2 door that is a 2 inch lift. Thinking of going that route or Tera flex

 

Though I may not have expertise as these others on here, I have a RC 2.5 lift and just like you I could feel almost every pot hole and things on the freeway but then I rebalanced my tires at a local garage and it rides so much better. Maybe your tires need to be rebalanced?

 

At what point do you have to re-gear? I have the 2.5" BB with 35's and i was planning on adding a 1" MORE body lift. Thoughts? I didn't see y'all mention anything above.

 

Too many threads on this topic.

3.8 vs. 3.6; stock gear ratio; tire size and weight; elevation; elevation change; target for freeway use or wheeling; automatic or manual; driver preference. All of these are factors for your decision to regear.

And after spending about $1500 on new gears, with a gain of only a few mpg, it will take quite some time to get that investment back at the pump. That said, it is the most cost effective way to regain lost torque due to larger tires.

 

If there's a lot of vibration, and vibration in the steering wheel that changes with speed, that's a good place to start troubleshooting. Unfortunately it doesn't do much in terms of the vibrations you feel from having springs that are stiff as cement. The OP seems to be suffering from that versus a harmonic vibration.

Lifting doesn't necessitate re-gearing so much as getting bigger tires does. (People usually lift and get bigger tires at the same time). Bigger tires change the overall effective final drive ratio. The concern there is overall power/advantage in driving the wheels and also crawl speed.

Are you just looking at a puck lift for the body, or were you going to cram a spacer up top of the coil springs? If you're doing it with spacers on the coils, you're really starting to change suspension geometry and you will NEED things like control arms, driveshafts, track bars, and you may need longer shocks or extensions.