The search for a magic carpet (Lifted ride discussion)

[bjm]

My view has all ways been , should have got made STD spring rates for front obviously longer, with good damping front struts,OME std 2 inch setup I fitted are woeful even on small corrugations .rebound damping almost non existent.

[Gojeep]

Do not run those spacers with such little thread! Minimum required by law states 2 threads exposed past the nut, for good reason.

I change my springs using my shop press. Way easier and safer than spring compressors.

[Windex]

Originally Posted by Gojeep

Do not run those spacers with such little thread! Minimum required by law states 2 threads exposed past the nut, for good reason.

I change my springs using my shop press. Way easier and safer than spring compressors.

Yeah definitely wasn't keen on running them like that, ain't no amount of locktight that'd make me comfortable with it in that condition.

The reason I am thinking about using some kind of spacer setup is as you move the lower perch up the shock body you are cannibalizing the down travel you have remaining in the shock, so I'm kind of hedging my bets where possible Fingers crossed I can get the ride I want then it'll just be fine tuning the height to ensure I don't have any guard meet tyre action.

[ARB87U]

Originally Posted by Windex

Another contender from Gabriel (heard of them but not sure of quality)
http://gabriel.com/product-search/li...partnum=G56807

Compressed: 361.95 mm
Extended: 533.4 mm

I know you have gone in another direction, but just some feedback on the Gabriel shocks from my personal experience, we fit Gabriel OEM replacements to our old charity rally nugget. 4 days of driving on outback roads, after 7 tyres and less than 1000km in total and they all needed to be replaced, absolute and utter garbage that left the car behaving like a boat by the rally end, you could compress a corner with your pinky and it would take about an hour to rebound lol. I will never buy Gabriel again!

At least Wholesale Suspension really looked after us and gave us a great deal on the kit in the first instance, so not out of pocket all that much. The rallies we participate in raise money for the cancer council to fund cancer research so they helped us out, we appreciated the support!

[Windex]

Well its all back together now and only had the toe setup by a shop (yet to get other settings sorted), and it appears to be settling at a similar height to the OME so far but give it a few weeks and I'm sure it'll be lower. I've yet to put many kms on it but in the short drive to and from the shop it definitely didn't feel too soft which is good.

I've currently got the Bilsteins set on the middle setting and running without any strut spacer.



I'll take some more measurements in a week or two to check the resting height, when I checked after a day or so it had settled 10mm below the OME setup, however this was with the added weight of the diff back in the car so might just be attributed to that.

[Hanna]

Originally Posted by Windex

Well I've began putting it in but need to get a shop to fit the struts to the springs (I ran out of courage with my spring compressors).
I trial fitted the Murchison spacers which definitely does not leave much thread engagement on the nuts at the top!

I have been running those Murchison strut spacers for over 6 months now with no issues. I was a bit concerned about the reduction in thread take-up myself, but after researching it, I was happy to leave them in as-is.

Legality aside (I have no idea what the rules state), I don't see much risk in running these spacers. Whilst the thread take-up is less, there is still plenty of meat for the nut there - I tightened mine with my impact gun and they definitely nip up tight! But the main thing that swayed me was after thinking about the function that they perform. The struts are nearly always pre-loaded with the car's weight forcing them up into the strut towers. The only way that the threads could fail catastrophically is if the struts were forced past their maximum (unladen) extension point, which I believe is technically impossible when the bottom of the strut is connected to the LCA and the steering knuckle is connected to the UCA due to the geometry and binding. Have a go at trying to pull the LCA down to over-extend the strut the next time you have a front wheel in the air - the steering knuckle contacting the lower spring perch will prevent this.

I think the only time that these threads could fail would be a situation where the LCA or UCA either break, or are forced out of their normal range of motion by a collision or similar, which in that case the struts popping out would be the least of your worries!!

[Gojeep]

If your insurance assessor spots it, good by claim as they can say it may have attributed to the failure!