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While fourwheeling with the Frontier club in April to Park Lake I managed to shear my driver's side U-bolt plate in half up front. This meant the shock could no longer be used in this spot, either.. which meant Tigger now had no front shocks, since the passenger front was damaged and seized up years ago.
I drove it home and parked it.
Just before our Father's Day run, I replaced the U-bolt plate.. but put a passenger side plate on the driver's side, so still no shock. I trailered the Scout to the trailhead, but had problems with trailer-sway for the first time, owing a lot to the Scout just swaying back and forth without any front shocks, and with the battered rear shocks canted inboard at a severe angle.
So, knowing RMIHR was upcoming and that nothing was really ready to go other than the truck, I opted to take Tigger... and since I didn't want to deal with trailer sway the whole way there, I decided I should do something about that shock situation.
I had some "take-offs" from Little Devil. 9" travel Dick Cepecks. Turns out, they're a good match for the 4" Skyjackers I run up front.
The Cepeck shocks are "loops" on both ends - no stud like stock shocks.
To accomodate this, I simply drilled through the top sides of the stock shock mount, and installed a bolt and some washers, turning the stock "stud" top mount into an "eye" mount with the bolt in double shear - while retaining the ability to run "stock" shocks still!
Turned out great, and easy.
I'd like to say the shocks worked great, but I haven't driven Tigger much since then. We did use Tigger for transportation around Salida during RMIHR, but that wasn't much.. and then when we unloaded in Moab, just as I was liking the new shocks on the whoop-dee-doos on the way to a trail, the Dana 20 started complaining - loudly.
It sounded like a shot U-joint, but they were all good.
Instead, it's a shot rear-output at the least. Seems I should've noticed there was one-less leak coming from Tigger.. the Dana 20 had dripped dry. :(
On the plus side, a Dana 20 will go about 30 miles without oil in it AFTER it starts making noise.
We limped out of the desert, back to Moab, and straight onto the trailer.. then proceeded to tour around in the 2wd Travelette.
Other than unloading from the trailer, Tigger hasn't moved since. I don't have any loose and unbroken Dana 20s - Little Devil has seen to them - so I'm waiting to drag my latest parts rig home and pull the D20 out of it..