Charging Your Shocks! It’s EASY!

As I started to prepare for our next CTI Tour and prepping Golden Spike, my 2004 LJ, I noticed that a couple of the MetalCloak 6Pak shocks were in need of some attention. The 6Paks make it very easy to know when they need to be serviced or simply recharged as the body of the shock will float to a location far off center, whereas a standard body shock needs to be taken off the jeep or unmounted in order to know if it needs attention.

For those that don’t know about the 6Pak shock and the engineering behind them, here is a little tech taken directly from MetalCloak’s Website:

“Specifically designed for applications where space is paramount and travel will be maximized. The 6Pak compact shock body extends shafts from both sides of a floating remote reservoir/body providing more extended length than ANY other shock that bolts into factory locations; the long travel capability is contained in the smallest compressed package providing maximum up travel also.

MetalCloak’s Floating Shock Body Technology (FST) provides a game-changing platform featuring parallel shafts extending from the 6 tube floating body. The shock is centralized with dual opposed, nitrogen charged reservoirs that give additional cooling capacity along with up to 13 inches of travel.

The compact, compressed body of the 6Pak is small allowing the lower shock attaching points to be trimmed and moved up for additional “under clearance” without sacrificing travel.”

Properly charged, the shock will look similar to this, with the body located midway between the mounts. It may not look to be exactly in the middle and that is ok.

The most time consuming part of re-charging shocks is removing them from the vehicle! That said, there are situations where you may not need to completely remove them, but having them off the Jeep definitely gives you a better perspective to inspect, clean and charge the shock. The reason behind removing them is that in order to properly charge them, they will need to be fully extended or have room to be.

The 6Paks are unique in how they are charged. There are two ports (Schrader valves) to charge them, a top and a bottom, and each port controls one of the ends and charge independently. While it sounds very complex (and is internally), it’s very straightforward in re-charging them. And fortunately, PowerTank makes the operation very simple with detailed instructions and videos describing exactly how to do this.

So, instead of re-creating what has already been done very well by our friend Jason of AutoEdits, I’m simply going to show a few additional images of what my experience was like today, with before and after pressures, kit hookups, etc., in hopes they help makes things easy for you all.

It’s easy to see that this front shock needs to be re-charged.

It showed only about 25 psi when connected to the easy to read gauge.

Hooked up and ready to charge. In this case I only disconnected the lower mount to allow for full extension.

Easy to use fill tool lets us reach 150 psi without any loss of nitrogen.

The PowerTank kit includes everything you need to safely and properly re-charge your shocks all inside an organized case!

Shock Boss™ V2 – Portable Nitrogen Shock Tuning Kit

Also, stay tuned for an upcoming NEWLY REVISED UPGRADED 6Pak shock from Metalcloak!

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