Thread: Do defenders normally break rear shockies?

All my shocks are cactus, fender wobbles all over the place, still they havn't snapped yet but they arn't doing any shock absorbing, and the front left spring has collapsed again i reckon. don't rate lr suspension think its time for an uprgrade.

Never had a problem with mine.

I snapped the eye off a new Iron man shock and a mate snapped the peg of a RR front one.Pat

Fit a new one & drive slower....

As Clarkie says, it looks like you're topping out but it's the speed that you're doing it at which will break it.

M

Rick130, stated the problem correctly.

The angle of the top mounting, is also wrong on classic rangies and disco I (I have no experience with disco II). They probably found something in a bin and used that instead of doing a proper job when they they went from leaves to coils.

The angle of the top mount cause the shockie to bend when the axle articulates. After enough straightening/bending cycles the shockie fails due to fatigue. If there are small manufacturing or design defects in the shockie they will fail earlier.

More compliant and less restrained rubber bushes in the top eye helps by accommodating some of the miss match in the angle of the mount.

Originally Posted by weeds

Might just add a rear shock to my list of spares to carry on extended outback trip

I'm gueesing it was a pain to drive till you got the replacement, did it slow you down much??

When I was on the simpson desert I came across two nissian travelling pretty slow as one has blown a rear shockie, they were towing camper trailers, I kinda thought it was funny as the guy was lecturing me on outback travel

Luckily we had spares, and when I broke my spare other people in our party had more spares! So, as soon as I found the problem I fixed it. I can do the job in 20 minutes now from get tools out to tools back in

When the original broke, I had really only been driving over rough dirt roads, so I don't think I'd really been pushing it too far, and certainly not topping it out all the time.

I think when it actually broke it was topped, but that was probably the first time on the trip.

I don't think we were travelling too fast as I was travelling with 1 other defender, 2 rangies, a Nissan and a Toyota and none of those broke any suspension components at all ??

I tend to agree with the angle thing...it may be wrong. I was running the factory suspension, and the car was well within its 900k rated load capacity.

Next time I'll leave the nut as loose as I dare.

It's interesting that it's just me though. We'll see what LR say on Wednesday.

Coz I went for nearly 4" longer shocks, i was warned that the pins would be under a lot more stress under articulation. I put in Pin-eye adapters for the bottom, so now run eye/eye shocks which will be much stronger. $80 well spent

Originally Posted by Bush65

The angle of the top mounting, is also wrong on classic rangies and disco I (I have no experience with disco II). They probably found something in a bin and used that instead of doing a proper job when they they went from leaves to coils.

In that case, explain why I've never broken one in the 15+ years I've been driving them??

Originally Posted by Bush65

The angle of the top mount cause the shockie to bend when the axle articulates.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that's what a BUSH is for??

M