Rear shock protection?

T

Tooltime19

New member
Has anyone found a source or fabricated up their own rear shock protection? Im finding alot of rock and flying debris damage on my rear shocks,mounts, bolts,shock boots ect. Ive quickly made up something from a thin piece of flat stock just to add some quick protection. Im having trouble putting pictures on here. I can describe what ive made if anyone is interested.
Thanks
:cheers:
 
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I know Im not the only person who is having issues in this area. If a rock damages the shaft of one of my Bilsteins, they wont be covered under warranty.
 
Icon as well as others such as Demello offer a "rear lower shock shin guard" for many variations of Toyota 4wds. You can search and find plenty.
 
Icon specifically say they can't be used with the billies. You can try the ones sold by [MENTION=64685]TOY2G[/MENTION]. They do provide lower mount protection but sans shin guard.
 
I've blown a few pairs of Icon rear shocks from the exposed lower shaft pitting from rocks, even with their shin guards.

I got some universal shock boots in addition to the shin guards, now.
 
I've had the vertical portion of the Icon shin guard, the portion that's intended to protect the shaft from flying rocks, bend back into the shock such that as the shock body came down the shin guard punctured the shock body. This is caused by rocks getting kicked back from the front tires, hitting that vertical portion of the shin guard causing it to bend backwards. It's really just a bent piece 1/8" SST sheet so not particularly stout, certainly not stout enough, it needs to be gusseted. I've heard of others having the same problem.

Even with these on both rear shock shafts were pitted. So a $500 shock rebuild with new shafts and a new body on one side later and I've cut that vertical portion of the Icon shin guard off and am running a rubber boot to protect the shaft.

Rago Fab makes a shaft protecting shin guard that looks like more than just a bent piece of sheet metal, but I have no experience with them.
 
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Alpinst said:
I've had the vertical portion of the Icon shin guard, the portion that's intended to protect the shaft from flying rocks, bend back into the shock such that as the shock body came down the shin guard punctured the shock body. This is caused by rocks getting kicked back from the front tires, hitting that vertical portion of the shin guard causing it to bend backwards. It's really just a bent piece 1/8" SST sheet so not particularly stout, certainly not stout enough, it needs to be gusseted. I've heard of others having the same problem.

Even with these on both rear shock shafts were pitted. So a $500 shock rebuild with new shafts and a new body on one side later and I've cut that vertical portion of the Icon shin guard off and am running a rubber boot to protect the shaft.

Rago Fab makes a shaft protecting shin guard that looks like more than just a bent piece of sheet metal, but I have no experience with them.
Click to expand...
They are pretty damn beefy, i have not painted or installed yet.
 

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OK, I've now replaced my Icon rear shin guards with Rago lower shock guards. Why? Because any rear shock skid plate that portends to protect your shocks / shafts with a piece of bent sheet metal is dangerous if you plan to take your vehicle off asphalt.

Here's the scenario; good graded dirt road and you're cruising at a good clip. Front tire kicks up a golf ball that nails that upper "shock shaft protecting" section of your shock skid plate dead center and bends it back <1" (hey, it's only sheet metal). The next dip you go through your shock body comes down and hits the deformed skid. Now your shock body is damaged, leaking and worthless (big bang from that side with every bump).

Here's pictures of my removed Icon rear shin guards. You can clearly see that the nice gusseted and welded lower skid is connected to the nice welded and gusseted upper shock protector by nothing more than 12 gage bent SST sheet metal. You can see how one (of the two) has been deformed backwards a relatively small amount, but that was enough to ruin the shock.


Icon_small

Here's the Icon skid sitting inside the Rago skid. The Rago skid is 0.187" thick welded and gusseted steel verses 0.109" bent SST sheet metal for the Icon skid

[IMG]https://www.flickr.com/photos/191889426@N04/shares/xJgb7H
 

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I have had to rebuild two rear shocks because chipping/pitting on the shaft from off roading (ended up tearing up all the o-rings and you find the shock has lost all its oil).

I now just run cheap rubber boots on my rear shocks and I have had zero issues since (after many thousands of miles in the desert at speed). You really don't need a ton to protect them from that. The shafts themselves are very strong, and cheap boots protect the rocks from being able to chip them. At least that has been my experience!

Bolts and mounting points are a different story. I have had to replace my bottom mounting bolts a few times (has been interesting getting them off) and totally replace my upper LCA mounting point with a more sturdy option.
 
BlairB said:
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I now just run cheap rubber boots on my rear shocks and I have had zero issues since (after many thousands of miles in the desert at speed). You really don't need a ton to protect them from that. The shafts themselves are very strong, and cheap boots protect the rocks from being able to chip them. At least that has been my experience!
Click to expand...

I agree. I was surprised how well the Icon 2.0 shafts looked, in my case (boots).

BlairB said:
My Kings (and previous Fox) didn't come with boots. 5100's do come with them.
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Per Fox vs King ~ OEM Coilovers | AccuTune Off-Road

Fox has a shaft twice as strong as Kings. Did you get those pitting issues with Fox or with Kings?

Also, saw your 4Gen thread: lots of classics reflected on those pics! Great stuff.

Which exactly Fox and Kings have you run? And what are the pros and cons of each in your personal experience?
 
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MAST4R said:
Per Fox vs King ~ OEM Coilovers | AccuTune Off-Road

Fox has a shaft twice as strong as Kings. Did you get those pitting issues with Fox or with Kings?

Also, saw your 4Gen thread: lots of classics reflected on those pics! Great stuff.

Which exactly Fox and Kings have you run? And what are the pros and cons of each in your personal experience?
Click to expand...

I had the pitting issues with the Fox. Maybe they are stronger but at the risk of being more brittle? Honestly not sure. I did also have the body actually come apart on one of my Fox (they noted weak weld penetration on my top mounting point and replaced it). At that time I was running Fox 2.5 Extended Travel in the front and fox 2.0 adjustable piggybacks in the rear.

I now run the Total Chaos spec'd Long Travel 2.5 Kings in the front (with their +2" LT kit) and an extended travel adjustable King 2.5 in the rear.

Right now the King's take the win for me by a dramatic fashion in terms of personal reliability. I had to replace or rebuild three Fox rear shocks in total and the Kings have been flawless. In defense of Fox, two of the rebuilds may not have been required if I was running boots.

I also do like the additional cooling I get with the 2.5 Kings in the rear. I carry a lot of weight in the rear and have done lots of fast/long runs. The 2.0 Fox never had any huge issues but they were extremely hot at points and the Kings definitely run cooler.

Fronts is tough to compare since it was before and after long travel. I did go with the King though at the recommendation of Total Chaos at the time. Even with the rears I never ran an apples to apples setup (have only ran my custom coils with the Kings).

I really need to redo my build thread! I haven't updated it in years.
 
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Thanks for that review.

The Fox 2.0 vs2.5 is presumably why you had issues with the shaft. My Icon 2.0IFP lasted 13,000 miles. I had them to 250F. The shaft was well protected by the boot though so no shaft issues. That is okay, they were meant as a first step anyway. I will probably rebuild them and keep them for the heck of it.
 
I'm running 2.5 Radflo and I did need to get them rebuilt for pitting, even with the Icon shin & shaft guards. They hadn't lost oil yet because of pitting damage, one of them lost oil when the Icon guard was deformed back towards the shaft and punctured the shock body. But during rebuild it was obvious I was going to need the shafts replaced. Radflo now offers pre-installed rubber boots (for a small $) and I haven't had a pitting problem since.

I'm now running the Rago shock skid to protect the bottom shock mount. I'm just trying to warn people about the few skid designs that us bent sheet metal to provide "shaft protection". They won't protect the whole shaft, you'll still get pitting, you still need a boot. And the sheet metal "protection" can actually deform pretty easily leading to shock body damage. The only skid design I've seen that has thick, gusseted and welded shaft protection is the Rago. They still don't protect the whole shaft and so I'm also running rubber boots.
 
Its kinda sad that these high end shocks dont come with any sort of boot or protection but the cheaper bilstein or eibach shocks come with a boot. Is there a reason for this?
 
Boots protect from pitting but trap moisture and fine debris that can lead to their own problems and failures. In a perfect world you'd velco your shock boots on before heading off road and then take them off when you come out. Too much effort for me. I wheel in the southwest so moisture is less of an issue and pitting has already proven to be a problem, so I run boots.
 
Alpinst said:
Boots protect from pitting but trap moisture and fine debris that can lead to their own problems and failures. In a perfect world you'd velco your shock boots on before heading off road and then take them off when you come out. Too much effort for me. I wheel in the southwest so moisture is less of an issue and pitting has already proven to be a problem, so I run boots.
Click to expand...
Don't attach the boots to the shock body. Shaft is protected and moisture drains.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
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