Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ (99-04) – How to replace rear coil spring and Shock absorber

The original coil springs and shock absorbers were still installed on my Grand Cherokee WJ fron the year 2000.

Needless to say they sag and the road / off-road handling wasn’t that good…

So, I decided to replace them all. I bought Oldman Emu HD coil springs and Bilstein 5100 shocks. My Jeep has more than 150K km so I thought it would be a good idea to replace the coil spring isolators, sway bar extensions, track bar and steering absorber. Long story short, more than $1000 were gone 🙂

Anyway, let’s start with how to replace the rear shock and spring (while we are there, we will replace the sway bar extension.

Required tools:

Wrench with sockets as follows:

15mm, 17mm, 18mm and 19mm.

Ring wrenches (same sizes as mentioned above)

Flat screw driver.

2 Jack stands.

Spring compressor would be a “nice to have” and will make the work easier.

Let’s start working…

1. Release the rear wheels nuts, Do not remove them completely, only release a little so it would be easier to open them later.
2. secure the front wheels and raise the rear end of the Jeep, I usually locate the jack under the rear diff and raise from there. Put jack stands under the Jeep’s chassis (the “rails frame”), remove the rear wheels and lower the jack.
3. Release and remove the sway bar extension, you can see in the picture below the upper bolt of it, remove it and the lower one.

4. Release the lower shock nut, as seen in the picture below:

Be careful, the bolt/axle is under pressure, make sure that the jack supports the axle, then, carefully remove the bolt and then, lower the axle / jack to release the pressure.

5. Release the upper bolt of the shock absorber

6. If you have new isolators, remove the old isolators using a flat screwdriver, clean the mounts. Install the new isolators, notice the pin/hole and install it according to them.

New isolators in place:

Old isolator VS the new one, spot the differences 🙂

If the height of the new springs is different than the old ones, you should fit the sway bar extension links, notice that sometime (as it was in my case) the holes in the upper/lower bushings are different and not the same as the original. I had to buy 2 new screws, 10mmX 60mm length in order to fit the new links.

7. Put the new coil spring in place, notice that the spring end should be in place near the hole/pin at the bottom.

8. Install the new shock and sway bar link.