Thread: 110 Lift, shock options.

Hey Cols, My deefer has tough dog shocks and springs which has around a 50mm lift on it. They are meant to have longer travel then the factory Defender shocks and I'm pretty sure they do. Articulation is quite good also. I went with the non adjustable shocks and several people have told me that they prefer the non adjustable to adjustable in tough dog.

Everyone told me they would make the defender ride like poo but it is heaps nicer then standard and nicer then most I've ridden in which have other brands.

Many people will say go with billstein as they have had good results but I was not keen on going with them.

They often need a carden joint and adapter when you lift them.

Xavier

Hi Col, to fit the LRA Billies you'd need to fit the extended mounts so that option is out anyway. To get 2" more travel, they need to be 4" longer so raised mounts must be used.
As you said, on the front you use 80 Series TLC dampers, either Koni or OME (OME have a better closed length and a touch more travel.)
the rear is problematic, and most modify a Patrol or TLC shock, either use a pin eliminator at the bottom, or cut the bottom eye off and weld on a pin.

I have the rear coil Patrol Koni lengths here somewhere, I was only measuring this up a few months back as I was going to pinch the rear shocks off SWMBO's ute and throw on the Landy temporarily, but she caught me red handed with her shocks off.

OME GU leaf rear Patrol shocks should be a bolt on, but not sure how the valving would be. The couple of sets of Patrol leaf rear shocks I've tried have been too soft in bump (gives a cushy ride ) and lacking in low speed rebound, but neither set were OME.

Think this is the specs. Koni 82-2348 660 open. 405 closed.
To give a comparison, 90-5401 Raids are 607 open, 391 closed.

The Patrol ones would be fine if you converted them to pin (pin measurements are taken at the base of the pin, eyes obviously in the centre of the eye.) as it would bring the measurements back 12-15 mm, but it means pulling the buggers apart to weld. using a pin to eye converter will probably make the damn thing go metal to metal if you ever got the rear end into the bump stops, but you wouldn't know unless you measured.

oh, btw, you'll unseat the standard HD NRC9448/9 springs with the longer shocks.
The way my front end is set up, I'm starting to dislocate the 17" LRA Purple springs.

Xavier, thanks for that mate, I will track down my local Tough Dog dealer and see what he has in stock, that might be an option.

Rick, I found you last point interesting about the springs dislocating with this set up, as my front wheels spend quite a bit of time off the ground when cresting dunes, the last thing I want is for a spring to come out, so for this reson alone I might just have to see what I can find in the slightly longer range, and sacrifice a bit of articulation for reliability.

The GU Patrol shocks sound interesting, I might check em out for the back, but as for the front the OMEs are still sounding OK, but I will check out the open/closed lenghts of the Koni`s, Tough Dogs as well before I commit either way.

Its a shame they don`t just make a get set of off the shelf shocks +1.5 inches for the defenders to make life easier, instead of all this stuffing around cutting, shutting and having to modify everything to make the most out of a small lift, Koni do it for the top of the line shocks, why don`t they offer the same sizes in their regular gas shocks.

The Kings Spring/Koni dealer and the main ARB dealers are incompatent here and can only tell you what is listed on their catalogue, nothing else, they get paid peanuts and they are monkeys. Its a shame we don`t have the same quality of sales staff who can actually offer advice as well as is the case in Australia.

Col, the trick is matching the free length of the spring to the open length of the shock.
If the shock is too long, you can always retain the spring by hose clamps or somesuch.

Hey Col i run OME 766 Front Springs which i believe are to suit a Landy with an Isuzu engine.Free length is 16.9" and rate approx 240lb.I have spaced my shock towers by 25mm and run 80 series OME N73 shocks.
I also have Haultech Engineering Slotted Bushes in the radius arms.

I run a bar and winch and personally believe my springs are just a little to hard and my shocks too soft.OME do a firmer shock in the same length.
My springs dont dislocate but its very close and they do get a bit cluncky when articulating heavily.

I found the rear a bit more of a challenge but i am happy with my results.
Not having a lot of spring choice was a pain and i almost got a custom pair made but decided on OME 755 which are 17" free length and 280lb
I ran the OME shocks to suit N44 but found them to be too short even though there meant to be matched.

I also had the problem of having the same length spring front and back and found the 110 looked low in the rear so in went a set of 25mm spring spacers and it sat much nicer.
For shocks i looked at Yota and patrol options but it meant running a pin to eye converter,something i wasnt keen on.
So i decided on Pro Comps with 11" of travel and had the right configuration for the 110.
I have had to retain my rear springs which wasnt hard just replaced the bottom retainer with something heavier and i use a couple of hose clamps up top.I also have to extend the bump stops a little.

Only thing stopping the rear from flexing now is trailing arm bushes(i have a set of cranked arms to go in).

This setup works for me and i'm pretty happy with but may not be for everyone.

Kev thanks for that mate, it makes for some interesting reading, by the sounds of it the 766s will be a bit heavy in the front for what I want, the 767s look about perefect.

I don`t really like the idea of a set of Pro Comps, the do a nice range of shocks lenghtwise but I never hear much good about them in a loaded vehicle on a long trip.

I just found this on the D4x4 forum which might do the trick perfectly.

For your info we can now also supply the OME shocks N115 and N44 40mm longer. Another Devon 4x4 exclusive

N115s & N44s +40mm might work out the best alround option for what I am after with a set of OME767s & 755s, I would have preferred a set of Koni`s but it does`nt look like they make a shock that I am after. The next question is can everyone supply the N115s & N44s +40mm or is it just a D4x4 exclusive. Can anyone shed any light on this.

If I can get away with doing it this way it will leave me with a pretty well std set up that might just require the springs being secured, but I doubt they will need it.

If I get this set up, a set of Haultech Slotted Bushes in the radius arms, and some cranked arms on the rear might be next on the list.

The OME setup will do its job...

However, I would recommend using the following:

Tough Dog Dampers & King Spring springs.

You say your vehicle is loaded most of the time (but not fully loaded), so I would put 2 x Tough Dog Foam Cell dampers on the rear and a single foam cell on each front corner.

Depending on the load you carry, you could also look at using the Tough Dog Ralph dampers on the rear - these are dampers with massive capabilities but are really only designed for overland vehicles that are constantly, heavily loaded.

With regard to the springs, King Springs extra HD spring on the rear and probably the HD spring on the front.

All told you will get about +2.5" on the rear and about 3" on the front - The extra 0.5" on the front just levels the car up nicely. You wont get any sagging problems either.

Other points to note...
Regardless of what springs and dampers you put on, with a TD5 you really should change the front prop for a Double cardon one. If not, under maximum articulation you run the risk of pulling the UJs out of the yoke.

You will need to adjust the castor correction on the front axle, otherwise the front springs dont sit straight and want to try to drop out of the top hanger. Some people are happy to use corrected bushes in the standard radius arms, but this introduces a weak-point in the system. Much better to use castor corrected arms and standard OE LR bushes.


Hope that helps!