8: What Happens Next Will Shock You!
...Continued from previous page
We've got axles on springs but no shocks… and they're Volvo axles so the shock mounts aren't where we might like them to be.
However, the Volvo shock mounts are both strong and fairly well placed. The front one is very solidly welded into the axle tube and the rear one bolts to the bottom of the portal box, which gives a huge amount of available shock travel.
A rear shock mount, yesterday.
Now, along with the Gon2Far front spring mounts, I'd gotten myself some revolver shackles for the rear and, more useful right now, a set of ~13“ travel ProComp shocks.
Back End
On the rear these just needed a slightly taller mount than the original Land Rover shocks:
These were braced across the top of the chassis and a 50×50 box section crossmember was welded in to provide rigidity across the chassis - we were removing the fuel tank crossmember which was now awkwardly placed too close to the rear winch tray to be useful and was in the way of a good space for a fuel tank:
Another 50×50 crossmember was welded in bracing between the rear spring hangers - this is more crossmembers than you might really need but it's not exactly a huge extra burden, and it gives somewhere for the fuel tank to hang!
This did mean we had to add some clearance in the tub:
But it ended up neat enough:
Back to the front!
At the front, the shocks mount to the axle tube so they're ~6” higher up than the rears, meaning we needed to add much longness to the shock mounting. There's been various kits raising the shock mounts with extended plates bolted to the chassis (and braced across the engine bay - right in the way!) or using tubes welded to the side of the chassis which always look very single-shear to me…
In the end we hit on what I think is a fairly elegant plan even if it does involve some mild heresy - replicate the later Defender mounts allowing us to buy whatever height of shock turret is needed!
Yes folks! We're welding coil-spring mounts to a leafer to hold the shock turrets! Told you there would be heresy! 
And honestly, it works lovely!
Onward to Transfer Of Power!
