So I have the 1.5" Proud Rhino lift rods on my truck. I've just replaced both rear shocks. A rock on a trail knocked the reservoir off of one of them and the top snapped off of the other (driver rear).
Wife drove the truck home (2k miles) on the broken shock with airbags at full lift (I wasnt too worried about things because we drove a similar distance home after the rock broke the passenger side shock. Just a stiff ride).
Well, after replacing this driver side shock I now hear serious grinding inside the wheel and I think the movement with the broken shock attachment (rather than reservoir) led to my bearing going bad.
1) Anything else this could be? Just ordered the $100 bearing and hope to have it swapped out shortly. Assuming this will be the fix, but if you think it could be something else, I'd be keen to hear it.
2) Not many folks out there having to replace these yet. Am I somewhat safe in assuming it is not too different than the LR4 videos out there on bearing replacement?
3) Am I crazy to think some of these issues are the result of the lift rods? We also offroad this thing pretty seriously and I'm wondering if this shock just couldnt't handle the weight of a drooping wheel when I put one in the air.

 

​​​​​​A Wheel bearing is kind of a PITA to do. I probably suggest to have someone test it before throwing parts at it. Just my 2c

 

Thanks Ralf! Well I pulled the knuckle, not too bad to do. The bearing is definitely bad and I'll work on pressing that out this weekend. However, I've run in to another issue. The bushing that connects to the lower control arm is also spent. See photo below. I've looked at the LR Parts diagram (here) and was puzzled by the absence of any part numbers showing for bushings. I just called my dealer and they told me that they don't sell just this bushing. You have to buy the whole ($1,400+) knuckle! That is insane. I'm digging around to see if I can find the right part elsewhere but am a bit frustrated by this.
Posting here in case someone has some guidance/advice/experience with this.

 

Thanks Ralf. Pulled the knuckle and the bearing is indeed bad. Gonna work on pressing that out and replacing this weekend.
However, I found the control arm bushing is also bad. Called dealership, they tell me that they don't sell just the bushing, have to buy the whole $1400+ knuckle. I have a hard time believing this, but it is not in the parts diagram. Anyone have any thoughts or insight?

 

Lesson learned... aftermarket lift rods bad, leave it stock good, under warrantee even better..
I learned this lesson years ago..

 

People are breaking shocks without the lift rods also.

 

You are correct in that JLR does not sell this bushing separately. The whole knuckle is the factory fix. We are currently working on a HD replacement for this bushing since this is a bit silly that it is a wear item.

 

If this were actually the case and the Defender was that sensitive, I'd be out immediately. As Nash said, shocks are breaking on unlifted vehicles.
Even better is an electronic lift with the IIDTool where you can go back to stock height in seconds without getting your fingers dirty :-p

 

Following up here:
Wheel bearing was definitely toast. When I pushed it out it broke open and many of the marble-sized bearings were broken/sheared in half
Replacing required removing the knuckle. That is not too bad if you know how to remove the parking brake mechanism (there is a video on an LR4 brake repair that shows how to get the emergency brake mechanism off; I'd done that on a pad replacement before, but this is necessary).

Replacing the bearing is not too bad if you have a shop press. First pushed the hub out (to the outside of the knuckle, then removed the giant circlip on the outside of the bearing (more on this later) and pushed the bearing out from inside out.

I then pushed the new bearing in to place and replaced the circlip.
Then came the mistake. I tried to push the hub into the bearing from the outside of the knuckle. This left the inside of the bearing unsupported. It is a tight fit and me doing this broke the inside half of the bearing out. $100 bearing down the tube.
So the bearing can not have the hub pushed into it without support on the inside. So with my next new bearing, I pushed the knuckle with the newly installed bearing (2nd one) down on to the hub (so pushing from the inside of the knuckle evenly across the surface of the bearing down on to the hub).

When looking online for torque specs for the various bolts holding the knuckle to the vehicle I found someone had posted the full digital P400 FSM on another forum. Super awesome, it contained the desired torque specs. It also had an interesting note on the circlip (see below). Apparently the circlip is to be mounted in the same orientation that it came off. I have no idea what that was and had already put it back together. I know there must be a reason for this, but I"m going to have to find out the hard way because I'm not going to proactively ruin a 2nd new bearing.
I just drove it 3k miles and counting on a trip out west and all good so far!!!