So upgrading my 89 Gen 1 SWB 3.0 to a Gen 2 steering box, idler arm, putting a new power steering pump, and an aftermarket cooler. While I was underneath, I spotted this cracked snubber. The other side is looking the same, cracked and broken also. Anyone ever change these out, and what have you used?

So everyone has not had to replace theirs? Amazing. I guess I'm rougher on mine? Probly my tonnage.

mine were cracked as well. I bought a set and promptly trimmed them down to accomodate the t-bar crank. a week later i found a set in the junkyard.
IIRC they are the same as Gen 2s.

Ok. I'll look into that.

They look the same as the ones on my GenII, which I cut in half to increase the suspension travel. If mine fail then I plan to look into finding an aftermarket generic stop that will bolt up to the factory location but match the cut-down height of mine.

The pictured bump stop is for the opposite side of the suspension travel. This stop limits compression of the suspension, otherwise you could damage a shock or drive a tire into the bottom of your fender. Been a while since some of you turned a wrench!

John B.

I don't even know what you mean by that JBfP

The bump stops the other guys are referring to are under the upper control arm and limit how much the front suspension drops, as in, how far the arm will travel downward. This is relevant because when trying to raise the front of the truck by cranking the torsion bars, oftentimes the suspension runs out of travel because it hits those bump stops before the desired height is reached. Even if it doesn't, there's little possible movement left when driving and the ride quality suffers, so you trim some of the rubber off to allow some more travel of the suspension.

The bump stops pictured in the first post control how far the suspension will compress, the opposite direction of the above-discussed often-trimmed stops.

Oh yeah, mine are chewed up too, but my tires ate mine since the steering limit stops are worn away on my '86. Not sure how that happened. Maybe it has something to do with jamming 33x12.5 tires onto 7" wide wheels...

John B.

Gotcha. The upper ones are.....ok-ish. The upper 2 bolt one on the drivers side has a crack in it. Passenger is good. Summit Racing has lots of different sized snubbers. I think I will probly order some of them. Those uppers are a PITA to mess with. I think I'll put it up on the trailer, then ratchet strap the front down to get the arms out the way. Any better ideas so I can get my sausage fingers in there?

You can uncrank the torsion bars to lower the front end of the truck to gain some access to the bolts on the upper bump stops, but my preference is to get a knife in there and just cut half of those off. It allows the suspension to travel downward further and/or allows you to crank the torsion bars further to boost the front end up higher. Just don't cut so much that the bolt heads hit metal when the suspension flexes. It's noisy, annoying and makes the ride rough, ask me how I know.

John B.