Iron Man vs OME Dakar... (1 Viewer)

[Bomar]

Well i hate my dakar springs,they ride ok but that stupid sleeve and the sagging and lean won't by them again.

I agree...but everyone here drinks the OME kool-aid.

 

[FJ40Jim]

I'm with you guys. the OME is way overpriced and rides like crap, IMO.

But the Ironman is about the same.

For me the Ironman is less expensive, so I've been recommending it as the lesser of evils. The folks at Camel4x4.com have been good to work with.

There are several excellent vendors for OME, as mentioned previously in this thread.

Pick your poison...

 

[TRAIL TAILOR]

Purchased a Heavy/Heavy OME kit for my 60 from Cruiser Outfitters and must say I am very pleased. First installed it was extremely stiff and had a bit of a stink bug rake. After a few off road runs with some weight in the back this calmed down quite a bit. Still has a higher stance in the rear, but I still need to add the new rear bumper, tire carrier, and roof rack. That should come close to leveling me out. If not I know OME makes AAL and I have all the faith in the world in OME/Kurt and his team to get me where I need to be. Kit may be a bit pricey but you get what you pay for in the long run. I have an OME suspension kit on my FJ80 and it has been a great suspension for the past 4 years. I may have just gotten lucky twice now, but I think OME is superior to most companies out there these days. Also, neither of my cruisers have the common Cruiser Lean either..

 

[rusty_tlc]

Why do you want to buy a lift and heavy bumpers? I'd put that money towards making your drivetrain bombproof and your interior nice and comfy.

The factory bumpers offer very little protection to the body, especially the rear quarter panels. If you have looked at very many FJ60 trucks that are driven off road you will notice that many of them have damage in the rear quarter panel.
After market bumpers also offer locations to mount a winch or carry the spare up out of harms way as well as store a couple of extra gas cans.

Other than upgrading the birfields and inner axles to Longfields there isn't a lot you can to to improve on drive train reliability without extensive modification.


The other reason many of us are looking at aftermarket suspension upgrades is that we are driving 30 year old trucks and the suspension components are getting worn. I don't know about your Cruiser but most have a bad case of butt sag when they are loaded up for a camping trip. Rather than replace parts with OEM we opt for aftermarket parts, if you can get a better product at a similar cost why not?



That's the argument I plan to use on my wife anyway.

 

[lehiguy]

I have 200,000 miles of experience with OMEs. If you don't get nasty-stiff shocks and you run the medium springs or even the heavy springs, they will ride ten times better than the stock springs. One factor that is often overlooked is shackle angle. The deeper arch means a shorter static eye to eye length. This translates into a less than ideal shackle angle. I moved my shackle mounts in a bit along with a longer shackle to correct this. It was a huge improvement. They are just about indestructable. I replaced my fronts a year ago, the rears are the originals. The OME bushings, while expensive, are the toughest things I have ever seen. They will stretch farther without tearing than any other bushing made.

 

[SNLC]

Iron Man had a horrible reputation 10+yrs ago. It was basically the budget poor mans suspension back then. Perhaps the company has made a lot of changes since then.....

OME is nowdays made in Maylasia from what I have heard. Does it matter? Your guess is as good as mine.

I am suprised I hear so much about how stiff the OME is. I have the mediums up front and HDs in the rear. My truck is not stiff at all, it rides like a truck yes but is not stiff or jarring in the ride. Perhaps because I am not running OME shocks?

I didn't buy my OME springs but If I had I would be very bummed on them. I am still bummed even though I didn't buy them! Here is why; Cruiser lean! I mean WTF OME, you sell these springs and it makes the truck sag horribily to one side!? I had an old cheap crappy lift on my truck that was worn out. It had Cruiser lean with this lift but not to horrible. I put on OME leaves and it is at least 2x worse! WTFH!? Besides this my truck looks like it sits at least 1/2" lower in the rear and yes I have lengthened my rear shackles. In fact I am using a 5 1/2" in rear shackle and want to now go to a 6" to get the truck sitting how I want. Now I am sure this has to do with the MAF S/R kit but I mean come on....between MAF, 4+ and OME you would think they could get this right out of the box so buyers of these products are not screwing with it trying to get things right. I mean come on already, I can not be the only guy with these issues. If I bought all this as a kit and spent say $2,000+ on it I would be raging fxxxing pissed off! Even though I didn't spend that much on it I am still a bit pissed off, can you tell!? Why does MAF, 4+ and OME not fix these problems? Why is it left to the buyer to figure it all out and get it dialed in? INMHO that is pretty s***ty on the vendors part, enough to make me not want to buy and of their products ever again! This is the only lift kit I have ever seen for a truck that causes so many problems.

Besides all this I am pretty happy with how my truck rides, handles and flexes. I have just had to do a ton of s*** to try and get it all dialed in right. And I still have Cruiser lean! I plan to try and fix that by buying a new rear leaf pack that is the same as my side that doesn't lean. I am hoping it will work....

 

[rusty_tlc]

....

Besides all this I am pretty happy with how my truck rides, handles and flexes. I have just had to do a ton of s*** to try and get it all dialed in right. And I still have Cruiser lean! I plan to try and fix that by buying a new rear leaf pack that is the same as my side that doesn't lean. I am hoping it will work....

Search "Cruiser Lean" there is a ton of info on how to correct that problem.

 

[SNLC]

I would also look in to the 4+ mojave springs... the drawback is MAF but you are in CA so you would not get killed on shipping.

FYI....

A buddy of mine locally had those springs. Same suspension as me but he had the Mojave springs. He hated them out of the box. Said they are to soft and make the Crusier lean worse then OME! I am sure they are decent for off roading as my buddies complaint was they were to soft and they seem to be marketed as an off-raoding spring. My buddy pulled them out with maybe 1,000 miles on them and bought OME springs. He is happy with it now. He gave a friend of mine the Mojave springs. Looking at them on the ground I am not impressed.

Years ago I put a set of Pedders on a truck, Aussie spring manufacturer. I was super happy with them. There is actually a number of other companies in Oz that make springs for the 60s and have a great reputation. Thing is they are not sold in the USA so you will have to pay shipping from Oz which is the deal killer.

My plan once I get things dialed in is to just keep the OME. The springs are fairly cheap for just the leaf pack so replacing them as they wear out won't kill my bank account. Plus they are available in many parts of the world which is good for me. If I had to do it all over again though, I would have Alcan build me a set of springs to match my uses, the weight of my truck and so forth. The OME is a mass produced product that tries to cover a large variety of trucks set up differently and for different uses. In the past I have always found a spring built to order is much better because it is built for your truck, your trucks weight and your uses.

FYI...I called Deaver in California 5 months ago when I open the supension can of worms because they have made me springs before that I was very happy with. They can make springs for the 60 series Cruiser but they were very expensive at around $700 per axle + shipping.

 

[SNLC]

Search "Cruiser Lean" there is a ton of info on how to correct that problem.

Dude I have....spent at least 6hrs reading about it here on the forum. After that I still didn't have a clear picture or answer as to why the trucks lean other then OME makes the springs that way to compensate for offset weight. Some guys say well the frame is supposed to flex and as such it will get to a point where it flexes but doesn't flex back. While I don't disagree with the frame having some twist to it there is no way it is so much that it makes my truck lean 2" to one side. I am just not buying that arguement after having been under my truck for many hours. A full boxed frame with plenty of cross memebrs will simply not flex enough to cause this problem. Many other trucks out there with a very similar frame that doesn't get lean from frame twist. I also read all about the late 1970s Toyota fix which is simply a plate and will end up lowering the truck. After all my reading and so forth the only solution that agrees with me besides a whole new set of different spirngs is to slap the same spring in the leaning side as the side that doesn't lean. It also happens to make sense....

We have a ton of 60 series Cruiser here where I live. I see more then 5 a day sometimes and not always the same ones. A lot of them are on stock sagged suspension. Not a single one I have noticed sags to one side. Then we have a bunch runnign around on 31-33s with a small lift. Same thing none of them I see have a lean.

My complaint is that OME and it's vendors sell these springs out of the box with lean built in and leave it to the buyer to fix. It is BS. If what I do fixes it I will be happy but at the same time think OME is even lamer since I have to match their products up myself to fix the problem when they could just sell them in the right configuration to begin with.

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

It's odd that you have the lean so bad. Mine has no lean, but has always had a bit more stinkbug than I like. I went to cs005's up front with the OME add a leaf, but I'm still an 1 3/16" off from level. I think I'm going to longer shackles up front. I do have a ARB, Warn M12000, and a group 31M up front so I suppose I have a bit more weight up front.

TK

 

[lehiguy]

Min did lean when I got the springs. I ended up having to swap out a "B" spring for an "A" spring which the vendor was happy to do. Problem solved. I do not know how many intstallations with an A and a B end up level vs. how many lean.

 

[Okie_dave]

The rear springs on my Ironman kit were side specific. One side had more arch than the other one. My 60 has little lean - not noticable anyway. My stock springs had a terrible lean when I bought it.

 

[klinetime574]

I have an OME Medium lift. A and B in the rear. It leans. I've kinda gotten used to it. But on roadways that are domed or slanted you really notice it because the higher side of the vehicle is sitting on a higher part of the road.

 

[Sixty's Guy]

The issue with the sleeves in the eyes is a PITA, but only really seems to be an issue if you don't use OME bushes (like I did). I put the OME bushes in and the issue is now gone. The other alternative is to use bushes from the rear of a 75 series and then ditch the sleeves. Not ideal though I know......

There are several other well known spring manufacturers in Aus (Kings, Ironman, Carrolls (EFS), Dobinsons, Pedders, Lovells, TJM, Belton and a few others) but it seems OME/ARB have the marketing power. Most manufacturers make side specific springs.

I have CS005 heavies all around and they flex really well. I even added a OME add a leaf to the rear to stiffen it up a bit. I originally had the lean, but it turned out to be the fact that I had a rear bar with the spare tyre on the passenger side. I now have the A spring on the passenger side and B on the drivers side.

The OME fitment book says that the springs may need to be changed if they vehicle has a lean. The book also says to use 'trim packers' if a lean is present.

 

[Tapage]

The book also says to use 'trim packers' if a lean is present.

trim packers in spring packs ?

 

[Elbert]

I used the "A" springs on both sides with the rear setup and I have never had any lean to speak of, after speaking with Kurt on that issue some time ago when I bought the OME stuff. I think it was the "A" spring, I have a 86 FJ60 with the heavy/heavy OME lift. Give Kurt a call to see what he recomends.

 

[SNLC]

I used the "A" springs on both sides with the rear setup and I have never had any lean to speak of, after speaking with Kurt on that issue some time ago when I bought the OME stuff. I think it was the "A" spring, I have a 86 FJ60 with the heavy/heavy OME lift. Give Kurt a call to see what he recomends.

Done and done. Kurt sold me an A pack today. Hoping it solves my problem. FYI, it was MAF who said I need the A-B packs.

 

[FJ60Seth]

I called ARB USA when I was installing my springs. They're were extremely helpful.

 

[goldchaser]

When i bought the dakar springs in oz there was a + or a - on them,no A and B. And no instructions on what that mean"t.

 

[klinetime574]

goldchaser from what I understand "A" packs have a higher arch. The "+" and "-" designate the manufacturers testing of each spring. Whether it was above or below their standards. As long as you have two A's or two B's you're safe. I've never read about OME lean with a matched pair of rear leaves.