[Today’s run: 3.4 miles – watson road]
We drove the Ford Ranger down to Jackson on Saturday, a round trip of 300 miles.
We attended the hamfest in Jackson, which was fun.
On the way I noticed that the front end of the Ranger had a shimmy as if one of the wheel weights was missing. But the odd part was that it sometimes was there and sometimes not. It finally dawned on me that we probably had a bad shock absorber.
So today I bought some cheap shocks and this evening I put them on. Everything went well until I broke the bolt on the passenger side lower shock mount. I was able to put the shock on anyway, but now I need to get in there again after I get a replacement bolt. I will need to use my dandy angle-grinder to grind off the broken bolt, then drill out a hole and put in a new bolt.
The lower shock mount is just cantilevered out from a frame member, not a very impressive way of doing it. The shock mounts must not have a tremendous amount of force placed on them.
This website has a good explanation about how to fix the problem, with some good pictures too.