Extended front shock mounts for jeep CJ
Utilizing stock Ford shock towers

This project we were completing as part of our SOA/axle swap on a 1985 Jeep CJ7, results may vary for your application - but should probably work for most post 1976 CJ's

Step 1:  Buy your mounts - this is simplest part - simply call your ford dealer (yikes!) and ask for part #E5TZ 18183A  - this is for a 1988 3/4 ton truck.  The computer (at the dealer) picture didn't look anything like it - so don't be fooled. Our local dealer in Zelienople had to order ours in, it took 2 days for them to arrive - they were approx. $11 each.

Step 2:  Go pick them, up bring them home, remove your old shock mounts - and notice how beefy and much longer they are compared to your stock mounts - see picture:

Step 3: Line up your mounts - now notice in the picture above that the configuration of the mount is different from the stock tower. The stock tower utilizes a stud, and you will have to provide a shiny new bolt for the Ford tower.  What do you care - well... this means that you have to locate the new tower farther towards the rear of the frame to make up for this - see pictures:

Notice in the above pictures (especially the picture on the right) that you can see where the old shock tower was, and you should notice that the new tower is more to the rear of the frame lining things up.

STEP 4:  While you have your new shock tower clamped to the frame, you will want to get on your creeper and look behind the frame.  Why?  Well, it's because there is a rather large hole (factory, not rusted through) around that area.  You will be drilling some new holes to mount the shock tower & you want to be sure that you are not drilling into, or too close to this hole.  See picture (sorry a little fuzzy)

OK - here's the deal with the above picture - this is looking at the back of the frame from under the jeep.  The blue arrow is pointing to the new shock tower that is clamped in place.  The red arrows are pointing to two of the three old shock tower holes, the green arrow is pointing towards the third old shock tower hole, this one is special because you can utilize this hole to mount your new Ford tower.  The yellow arrow is pointing to the aforementioned big hole you have to watch out for when drilling your new holes to mount the new Ford tower.

STEP 5:  While you are under the Jeep & have the shock tower clamped, stick a pencil or hole punch, or something through the old shock tower hole (green arrow in the picture) in the frame that you are going to be utilizing.  This is to mark the tower to drill it out (duh).
Unclamp your shock tower & move on over to the workbench.

ABOVE:picture of the mount that was marked after being clamped to the frame  The center large hole mark was marked to insure that no new holes are drilled to close to this area .

ABOVE:  picture shows the outside of the frame rail (front being to the right) - the pencil is pointing to the original shock mount hole that is going to be utilized.

STEP 6: Well.. when we got our tower over to the workbench, we decided that the marked hole was just a little pinch too close to the edge of the shock tower & would make it difficult to get a hex head in there, so we marked & drilled our 3/8" hole just a little tiny bit away from our mark - but this ain't rocket science & it worked out OK - check out the pictures:

STEP 7:  Go back to the Jeep, and line up the new hole you drilled with the appropriate hole for it.  We reutilized the 3/8" bolts that the original shock mounts had & it was at this time that we tightened down the new Ford tower with one of these bolts.  After we did that, we lined things up to be square.

ABOVE: This picture shows us re-aligning the new Ford tower.  The yellow arrow is pointing toward the handy-dandy magnetic torpedo level that helped us get the tower straight.  The red arrow is pointing towards the bolt that we just inserted in the hole we just drilled.  This is the only thing holding the tower on right now.  The green arrow is pointing toward the upper factory hole in the Ford tower that you WILL NOT be utilizing, if you stuck a bolt through this hole, it would go into the big hole in the back of the frame that we earlier mentioned you should avoid. The blue arrow is pointing towards the lower factory hole in the Ford tower, which you WILL be utilizing. 

STEP 8: With everything lined up, you will be drilling two holes from this position.  The first will be a hole through the lower factory hole in the Ford tower (blue arrow above) - this will also go the entire way through the frame.  The second will be a hole approx. 2" to the left of the bolt that you inserted in step 7.  Be sure when you drill both of these holes that you don't drill into any brake lines, or other things on the backside of your frame. Note - the lower factory hole on the Ford tower is a 1/2" hole, we drilled only a 3/8" hole through the frame so we could use the bolts we had on hand, you could drill a 1/2" hole if you prefer to use a larger bolt.

STEP 9:  Remove the bolt, and take the tower off of the frame.  We decided to be nice to our vulnerable CJ frame, and make a plate for the back of the new Ford tower.  The stock tower had crush sleeves in the frame for protection.  You could do crush sleeves if you want, or the plate or  I guess you don't have to do anything, and you could just leave the tower on & stick some bolts in if you are lazy.  We used 1/4" steel plate - it was cut in a slight trapezoid to make up for the angle of the frame.

ABOVE:  The picture shows the back plate (not drilled & painted yet) that we used - it was made out of 1/4" steel plating that I cut with a sawzall.  The yellow arrows are pointing to the three holes in the Ford tower that will used to mount the tower to the frame.  What is not evident from this picture is the upper stock hole in the tower, it is hard to see, but it is there, kinda between and a little above the upper two holes.  What is also not evident is that the back plate is cut to be a slight trapezoid.

CONCLUSION:  This modification netted approx. 4" additional of shock travel vs. the standard mount - without doing some type of modification I would have not been able to install Rancho 9012 long travel shocks on my Jeep.  It was much cheaper than aftermarket kits, the parts are brand new, and they are really beefy.  Thanks to pbmcauliffe and the rest of the good folks over at the off-road.com SWB BBS - this idea wasn't original, I'm not that creative.  -Mel

Shock tower and shock mounted on drivers side - the Rancho 9012 shock at this point is 24 3/4" long, the lower mount that we welded on is at a slight upward angle behind the axle tube.  The Rancho 9012 compresses to approx. 19" and extends to approx. 32"