Leveling the H3

[Jeff G]

Originally Posted by tomp

Before wasting time running around looking for longer shocks, you should realize they will not gain you anything. The stock shocks are made my Rancho for Hummer and so on. Rancho & Monroe are also same company.

Keep in mind all 3 of the above shocks have built in internal and external bump stops.

Rancho makes their after market shocks to same specs as the OEM shocks with improvements over the OEM ones they provide to Hummer.

Whenever you crank the torsion bars, you are limiting your travel. The reason for this is not because the shocks are too short, but because you have placed them out of their travel-range.


By adding the shock extenders, you get back the lost travel. How? Well, by design the stock design does not allow the lower control arm to fall all the way down because it hangs from the shock before ever hitting the built-in bump stop on the control arms.

The shock extenders allow the control arm to fall down where they should and hit the control arm bump stop before hangin up on the shock.

The shock extenders fixes the problem and allow you to run stock shocks. Why would you want to limit your shock selection by going with a longer shock that will not gain you anything?

I actually meant longer travel as well. I guess it just has something to do with stability. I know the extenders probably will work fine, I would just feel better with a complete shock in there.