Icon suspensions failure (1 Viewer)

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There all the way out in California, and I'm located in central Florida. Took a week to get the shocks out to them and another week for them to be delivered back. So 4 weeks more or less, for them to inspect and rebuild
 
I thought they inspect and rebuild every Tuesdays. Usually get them done in 2-3 days. I understand the shipping time.
 
Hey, Michael. I just had the same exact thing happen to one of my rear shocks this week at LCDC 👎. I only had about 200 miles on the suspension before the drive out to Colorado. About to send my info over to Icon to get the warranty process started.
 
Hey, Michael. I just had the same exact thing happen to one of my rear shocks this week at LCDC 👎. I only had about 200 miles on the suspension before the drive out to Colorado. About to send my info over to Icon to get the warranty process started.

i had it happen to my other rear shock too, six months after the first one. The folks at Ivón rebuild the shocks for me at no charge. They said it could have been an issue with install due to over tightening the bolts. I made sure this time around to not over tighten and compress the bushing. But havent had a chance to take her out to see if it happens again.

it did take about 6 weeks to get the shock back so I bought a stock shock and used it while I waited for the rebuild shock.

hope this gets resolved for you quickly. Sucks I wasn’t able to make it to this yrs LCDC.
 
i had it happen to my other rear shock too, six months after the first one. The folks at Ivón rebuild the shocks for me at no charge. They said it could have been an issue with install due to over tightening the bolts. I made sure this time around to not over tighten and compress the bushing. But havent had a chance to take her out to see if it happens again.

it did take about 6 weeks to get the shock back so I bought a stock shock and used it while I waited for the rebuild shock.

hope this gets resolved for you quickly. Sucks I wasn’t able to make it to this yrs LCDC.
That’s wild the other one broke too. I wonder if it was a bad batch since we bought ours at the same time? The guy on the phone seemed cool enough, haven’t gotten to the part where I have to ship it back yet though. Had the local Toyota dealer install it soo I’d hope it was installed and torqued correctly. I believe it may have broke on Friday, caught it first thing Saturday. The great group of guys at LCDC helped to get the shock out of the truck in minutes to not damage it anymore and I’ve been driving on 3 of the 4 shocks since.

Thanks, luckily I have another vehicle or two. It was a shame you weren’t able to join. No Expo this year 👎
 
The passenger rear shock is the most common failure - it takes the most mounting deflection when you are offroading. I broke 3 in that location on the my 100. Shaft pulled out of the Bilstein. Broke a Radflo shaft in half. Pulled an Icon out of the upper mount (the donuts disintegrated). Shock survived but the body is beat to hell. In all the cases I was putting them under severe stress. The 200 has the same configuration in the rear.

I add this only to inform folks to keep a close eye on the pass rear. Keep an eye on the upper shock mount and donuts to make sure all is good.

Obviously you can have a bad shock and component failure outside of severe use.
 
The passenger rear shock is the most common failure - it takes the most mounting deflection when you are offroading. I broke 3 in that location on the my 100. Shaft pulled out of the Bilstein. Broke a Radflo shaft in half. Pulled an Icon out of the upper mount (the donuts disintegrated). Shock survived but the body is beat to hell. In all the cases I was putting them under severe stress. The 200 has the same configuration in the rear.

I add this only to inform folks to keep a close eye on the pass rear. Keep an eye on the upper shock mount and donuts to make sure all is good.

Obviously you can have a bad shock and component failure outside of severe use.

Why does the passenger side take more deflection than the driver side when they seem to be symmetric?
 
The passenger rear shock is the most common failure - it takes the most mounting deflection when you are offroading. I broke 3 in that location on the my 100. Shaft pulled out of the Bilstein. Broke a Radflo shaft in half. Pulled an Icon out of the upper mount (the donuts disintegrated). Shock survived but the body is beat to hell. In all the cases I was putting them under severe stress. The 200 has the same configuration in the rear.

I add this only to inform folks to keep a close eye on the pass rear. Keep an eye on the upper shock mount and donuts to make sure all is good.

Obviously you can have a bad shock and component failure outside of severe use.
You think having a shock guard would help reduce this failure?
 
Installed

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The passenger rear shock is the most common failure - it takes the most mounting deflection when you are offroading. I broke 3 in that location on the my 100. Shaft pulled out of the Bilstein. Broke a Radflo shaft in half. Pulled an Icon out of the upper mount (the donuts disintegrated). Shock survived but the body is beat to hell. In all the cases I was putting them under severe stress. The 200 has the same configuration in the rear.

I add this only to inform folks to keep a close eye on the pass rear. Keep an eye on the upper shock mount and donuts to make sure all is good.

Obviously you can have a bad shock and component failure outside of severe use.

Wow. That's a lot of hard use!

Would seem that there's something in the rear geometry or setup that isn't right causing all these issues? Rarely hear of stock shocks catastrophically failing. But then again, the stock shocks aren't used with modified rear setups often, i.e. taller springs, heavy spring rates, etc.

The stock rear shocks act as droop limiters in our suspension. I wonder when paired with the heavier springs and tires, if this puts more load on them then they can handle. Perhaps time for limiting straps?

If there's adjustable panhard or tracbars involved, then there may be some geometry alignment that's causing them to fail.
 
BudBuilt. I liked how theirs was 100% bolt in. Pretty sure the TT requires drilling.
The TT shock guards are bolt on like the BudBuilt. The BB are stainless steel however, which is nice. The TT RLC guards are the ones that need drilling.

PS, glad you made it home on three shocks.
 
I used to love Icons, but I don’t recommend them right now, and talk as many people as I can over to anything else (well, not Ironman or Dobinson either)

Icon switched to a different seal manufacture a coupe years ago, and this is a very common issue now. So common that lots of shops stopped installing them that I talk to beucase they don’t want to deal with them.

Icon was Donahue Racing back in the day, but Donahue got busted for child porn (not kidding) and the business got bought up by a large corporation that renamed it Icon.

Should of known that after a few years, it would do what most large companies do to their subsidies. Hit hard with advertising, once you’ve got the base, cheapen you’re the product, increase profits as long as you can before they catch on.

It upsets me because I have a set of 32” Icons that have 9 years and 100k? on them, and no issues. On other Icons I’ve had, that I’ve blown on the Rubicon, Dust, or Hammers, it was because they were on a bouncer (not a once lived production vehicle) and that is to be expected. I have called Icon many times for spare parts. The guys would leave the parts at a disclosed location outside so we could pick them up after hours.

That was customer service that just didn’t happen over at King. Which is why I support Icon over all the rest. But then, the Corp that owns Icon go a mess up a good thing.

I hope they go back to the more expensive seals and that way I can recommend them again.
 
Replying in general....

The shocks do take a beating in the Land Cruiser because of the down limiter function. The reason I stated the pass rear is most vulnerable is that the weight transfer of the axle assm is higher on that side (location of diff etc) and it tends to pull and twist (deflect) on that shock. The upper rear mounts are angled in way that at extreme suspension cycles deflects that shock pretty severely. I've checked geometry on the rear and have adj panhard blah blah (I have all the stuff except limit straps). My experience and some others bear this out. Scientific? No. But plausible.

Limit straps could help some OR .... On my 100 I've been contemplating all new shock mounts ala @spressomon

I tend to run the equipment hard. The last failure (Icon) happened in Death Valley running Saline Valley hitting 50mph+ for 25 miles. Severe. I dont blame any of the shocks for my failures but it points to issues at the extreme.
 
The TT shock guards are bolt on like the BudBuilt. The BB are stainless steel however, which is nice. The TT RLC guards are the ones that need drilling.

PS, glad you made it home on three shocks.

Thanks for correcting me on the drilling part. I’ve got just over 200 miles left for the trip. My bigger concern was a ripped cv boot. Halfway home I decided to put some Flex Seal on it to help bandaid it lol.
 
Thanks for correcting me on the drilling part. I’ve got just over 200 miles left for the trip. My bigger concern was a ripped cv boot. Halfway home I decided to put some Flex Seal on it to help bandaid it lol.
Thats right, I forgot about the CV boot. Safe travels the rest of the way home.
 
Replying in general....

The shocks do take a beating in the Land Cruiser because of the down limiter function. The reason I stated the pass rear is most vulnerable is that the weight transfer of the axle assm is higher on that side (location of diff etc) and it tends to pull and twist (deflect) on that shock. The upper rear mounts are angled in way that at extreme suspension cycles deflects that shock pretty severely. I've checked geometry on the rear and have adj panhard blah blah (I have all the stuff except limit straps). My experience and some others bear this out. Scientific? No. But plausible.

Limit straps could help some OR .... On my 100 I've been contemplating all new shock mounts ala @spressomon

I tend to run the equipment hard. The last failure (Icon) happened in Death Valley running Saline Valley hitting 50mph+ for 25 miles. Severe. I dont blame any of the shocks for my failures but it points to issues at the extreme.

You bring up a good point with the diff. The diff in the 200-series is centered. The prop shaft itself, as it drives the rear axle, puts a torsion load on the rear axle. IIRC, it turns clockwise from the perspective of the driver. This would also put significantly more down limiting stress on the passenger side of the axle. Generally not a problem when all tires are on the ground. But driven hard with a lot of full droop or airborne antics, can tax the passenger shock more.
 

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