blown front shock, inadequate bumpstoppage?

[BLAKLISTED]

So I have a list of things that have gone wrong with the xj recently, and this arvo upon arriving home from work ive noticed another injury on the ol girl. I noticed some oil pooling beneith the front drivers hand shock. Taking the rubber boot off revealed the arse has blown out of it.

The shocks are brand new, have not even done a hundred kms yet and wheeled it for only the second time last wk end. I installed the two inch bump stops provided with the 3.5 inch kit, and after this added another inch cut from a rubber mallet to be on the safe side. Perhaps not safe enough? I also still have an inch or so of the original bump stops hanging in there but as you would imagine they are a bit crumbly now. Prob next to useless.

are my bump stops to blame here? I'd be curious to know how much bump stoppage others are running with a 3.5 inch lift.

[brenttj]

Measure how much shaft the're is showing then measure distance between the bottom pad and the top of your bumpstop just remember that the jounce rubber on the top bumpstop compresses the bumpstop distance should be less than the amount of shaft showing

[junglejuice]

You need to know the compressed length of the shocks and that will help you work out the bumpstop length, if you're still using the stock bumpstops then be aware that they will compress completely....

[BLAKLISTED]

So I've measured the shock shaft length, it was 87mm. Distance between the adjusted bump stop and stock bump stop was 10mm less at 77mm. But like you said JJ the original bump stop is soft. Maybe it wasn't enough to save it. Thought the shock would have bottomed out before packing it in so quickly. I wasn't throwing it around the trail for that reason, I was testing everything was schmicko so was taking it fairly easy.

It puzzles me why the kit came with 2 inch bump stops in the first place if they were going to be insufficient to prevent busting shocks or wrecking springs. I supposed that the 2 inch bumps supplied are assumed to be used in conjunction with brand new OEM bumps that aren't half rubbish?

[BLAKLISTED]

So to bump stop properly to protect the shocks, how far down on the shock can you go so the shock is not getting overworked? Should I aim to see about ten mm of shock shaft when the bump stops are touching? Or as long as the shock is not bottoming out at all then all is good?