SidecarFlip wrote:
Installing any coil over shock and expecting it to assume an overload condition is asking for trouble. Shock mounts, in general, are not beefy enough to carry weight. Shock mounts are built to carry a shock and absorb the shock stress, not carry a load all the time.
It's a cheap out way to increase load capacity while stressing something that isn't designed or built to carry a sustained load.
Sustained loads don't hurt anything. It is load variations over about 50% of yield strength that cause metal fatigue. The combination of shock absorber action and weight carrying may well increase the likelyhood of this happening. My personal experience with load carrying shocks is that I ran some on my 1970 Impala for about 170,000 miles with no ill effects but they were only carrying a couple of hundred pounds. That was enough to make a big difference on a sedan with a soft suspension. After market shocks that are much stiffer than the factory ones may well do more damage than steady lift from springs.