Installed my front FT BB / M-force yesterday and tackled the rear tonight. While waiting on my helper (12 yr old had homework) I thought I would be extra prepared and prep some stuff. Read about removing the pins in the shock bushings and placing in the sleeves. The vice trick worked like a champ. But then the crappy part began. No sleeves!

Went to Autozone & Pepboys, no luck . Hit a few repair shops, no luck. Went back home and figured I would take them out of my stock shocks. Compared the M-force to the mounted rear shock to make sure they were the same (figured they had to be but just wanted to be sure.) Looked at the stock and noticed the pins up top. Crap, I took the pin out of the upper end not the bottom end.

My vice would not open wide enough to get the bushing and pin in parallel. . My helper finally was ready, so tried to hammer it in, NO WAY. After a while was ready to give up for the evening or do some major damage to something or someone that did not deserve it.

Remembered I had an old vise. It opened wide enough and after only three tries, bingo it went in.

At least the rest of the install went great. Other than I had to do a little work to get the pin ends to accept the bolt again after my earlier frustration.

Learning a lot and it is a good thing I luv the JK otherwise it would have a few hammer marks by now.

 

Awe man, bummer you ran into so many problems. Just to make sure we are on the same page, you did make sure to install your M-force shocks with the can side up, right? Also, were you ever able to find new sleeves?

When you get a chance, please post some pics of your Jeep with its new lift

 

Good times.

 

Will do on the pics. The JK center caps are just too cool.

The lower side had the sleeve and the upper the pin like it should. I was a moron and took out the pin without noticing your comment of swapping the lower side. All was good once I put the pin back.

Not too much of abummer. Me and the boy are having a great time doing it. One of the best bonding things we have ever done. He is majorly into cars and things like Unique Whips and the other tv mod shows. It has been a big help having someone and he does at least a 1/3 of the work.

It is funny, I bring a laptop to the garage to blow up the pictures of the install write-ups. Could not do it without the great site you run.

 

LOL!! Well, I'm glad to know that my website has been able to help you out. By all means, let me know if you have any specific questions or if there's anything I can do to help you out.