Slee4+1 w/ Bilstein 7100s

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7100's have heims standard top & bottom. We popped out the bottoms and replaced w/ bushings.

400/100 is what I would try even w/ OME heavies

7100 rebound/compression are independently tuneable I believe. So you can make it softer/firmer on one end rather than both.
Anyway, for the effort of fabbing, I wasn't staying with an emulsion shock. If so, I would just get new OME's. They are cheap, a good shock, and bolt-in.
 
James,

Excellent write up and detail. I'm in the middle of doing a similar set up to what you guys did, (4" Slee's and Bilstein 7100's). I have the springs and weld in adjustable panhards ready to go soon, and then plan on taking flex measurements to see what length shock to go with. I have a few Q's for you;

As far as your rear lower eye/eye adapter goes; Was the only reason you went with them because you chose to do the urethane mounts? Otherwise you could mount the 7100 heim joints to the factory mount, right? Or was there any clearence issues with using the stock lower mount?
 
12" short body. Mike has 14" and it requires an exponential amount of work, but you know Mike's truck! It must conquer and devestate all!!

Rear Lower mount:
- heim is too small to fit over the OEM (factory) mount.
- If you push out the heim and use a bushing over the OEM mount, the bushing will be too thin and disintegrate.
- If you use a metal spacer in lieu of poly, you will have some shock binding and possibly that will damage or stress the shock and/or mount

mounting variations-
- the mount we came up with (which I think is uber cool :) ) allows for no shock binding, bushing or heim mount (meaning we could have left a heim in there). And, if we carry 1 front/ 1 rear old shock, stock OME shock can be mounted back in a trail emergency

- you can cut off the OEM lower mount post and basically weld an adapter there and slide a bolt thru (like the upper adapter). That is another option. this would allow you to drop the mount location down a few inches if you have a longer shock (LandcruiserPhil did this)

*of note- Rick had the foresight to engineer it w/ all the same size bolts in mind. This way, carrying trail spares and fixes are minimal and easy. I really think it is a brilliant, simple tip.

-The real difficulty is at the top side w/ hose clearance. So pay careful attention to it and if you come up w/ more ideas there, I think we would really love to hear them. thanks!
 
IBCRUSN said:
I understand where you're coming from. With the extra 2" of travel have you considered making new upper shock mounts to take advantage of the additional 2" of down travel?
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sorry I missed this comment earlier-

yes I had many sketches and ideas over the past year or so- the problem w/ raising the mount is the minimal clearance between the shock mount and body. There isn't much there and not enough for a resivoir shock. We even toyed w/ mounting upside down but that is beyond stupid w/ the resivoir hose at the bottom-very exposed to elements.

Pay attention to Clownmidget's upper shock mount design- he is coming up with something quite cool for that problem.:cool:
 
Doh!, I should probably know my dimensions of my shock mounts first!

So, you don't have any of those top rear shock mounts laying around that you want to get rid of, do you? Heck, I'd even be willing to pay, (what I mean by that is I'd definatelly be willing to pay)!

You guys should seriously sell some.
 
FirstToy said:
I had many sketches and ideas over the past year or so- the problem w/ raising the mount is the minimal clearance between the shock mount and body. There isn't much there and not enough for a resivoir shock. We even toyed w/ mounting upside down but that is beyond stupid w/ the resivoir hose at the bottom-very exposed to elements.

Pay attention to Clownmidget's upper shock mount design- he is coming up with something quite cool for that problem.:cool:
Click to expand...

Sorry my explanation wasn't as clear as it was in my head. What I was trying to get at was if at full stuff you have ~2" of shock travel remaining make or modify mounts that lower the upper mount. That way at full stuff on compressed bumps you'll have ~.5" of shock travel remaining. In turn you'll get 1.5" of additional down travel. Sort of a follow on to this thread:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=149353&highlight=rear+shock+mount+spacers

I didn't see what P/N 7100s you used but the mount above the frame idea would work well if you went with a 2" longer shock that you really needed. It's very tight without a body lift to get a decent mount up there. With a 1" there is plenty of room to make nearly anything work. Something like FJBen did in this thread:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=112634

I made a set of something similar out of square box tube but didn't end using them (the 7100s would have been a hard sell to the misses this season). If you're interested I can take a pic if I can remember where I put them.

I'll keep my eyes open for Clowns work.
 
84runner said:
As far as your rear lower eye/eye adapter goes; Was the only reason you went with them because you chose to do the urethane mounts? Otherwise you could mount the 7100 heim joints to the factory mount, right? Or was there any clearence issues with using the stock lower mount?
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James - get to the shop so we can finish these! The look great :cheers:

the lower rear shock mount stud is approx. 0.75" in diameter (OD). The ID of the Bilstein and Fox eyes are only ~7/8" so you can't realistically make it work. This was attempted by Ali by reaming out various bushings but they all eventually got chewed up. Another option would have been to just cut off the stock stud and put a 9/16" or 1/2" stud on there and be done. The stock stud does have a pretty substantial through-shaft going all the way back for ~2" so we favored leaving that there and working around that constraint.

It ended up not being important though as the shocks James and Rick chose for their 5" lift worked out to be fine for what they had between the upper and lower mounts under compression and extension.

There isn't another 1.5" of droop, extra compression, etc. in there. If the tire is completely stuffed, the shock is essentially completely compressed. I think James' tires are hitting the frame a bit earlier than Rick's so that's holding up that last little bit of compression.

Having remote reservoir shocks on the rear is definitely a huge pain in the a$$ to mount up properly and it may well be worth just doing some 5100-series or similar. If you do a mount above the stock mount location (ie, on top of the plate versus under it) you will be faced with how to get your remote reservior through the center hole, your bracket and then properly mount the reservoir to something. This took Rick, Dale and I a huge amount of time and more than a few design attempts to get it right. The results are great but by the end I was ready to mount them upside down :rolleyes:
 
IBCRUSN said:
You should consider replacing those plain nuts and split washers for metal lock nuts or even Ny-loks. I would never trust split washers w/ plain nuts on something that is prone to high vibration.
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You mean you wouldn't trust every nut on your truck as it came from Toyota? :rolleyes:
 
IBCRUSN said:
You should consider replacing those plain nuts and split washers for metal lock nuts or even Ny-loks. I would never trust split washers w/ plain nuts on something that is prone to high vibration. They might help the thread engagement too it not a slightly longer bolt would help.
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It wasn't good grammar but you missed a key statement when you quoted me. I corrected it.

clownmidget said:
You mean you wouldn't trust every nut on your truck as it came from Toyota? :rolleyes:
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I fail to recall where Toyota used split washers and plain nuts in vibration prone areas on the truck, please enlighten me.
 
IBCRUSN said:
I fail to recall where Toyota used split washers and plain nuts in vibration prone areas on the truck, please enlighten me.
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...work on your truck much? Try all of the nuts holding your thirds onto your axle housing...or the nuts holding your driveshaft to the pinion...
rear_shock_rearview_static.webp
 
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This is with 1" body lift, upper mount sitting on top of stock mounting plate. The real trick was to enable the reservoir to pass up through the center hole of that mounting plate, through the bracket, and still be able to move it into position to be mounted.

The existing center hole was enlarged to 3.5" using a hole saw with a plywood template/guide bolted up to the existing side holes. Then a second 2.5" hole was cut just about at the circumference of the first hole but clocked towards the front/center (relative to the body of the truck). The "ears" were ground off leaving an odd egg shaped hole that allowed the reservoir to pass up.

The upper mount is 3"x3"x3/16" tubing, the bottom is opened up to 3.25" and some arcs on the side were plasma cut. Jam nuts were welded to the bottom surface so a bolt could be pushed up from the bottom to secure the bracket to the original plate surface. Another jam nut and spacers were welded for the shock eye mount. This allowed a bolt to be pushed through from the front and threaded in. Bottoms were like James'.

Static height indicates I've got ~7" of shaft exposed and 7" in the body. If the math is correct, we should see all of the travel of the shock (limited by straps and bumpstops) to full compression and full extension.

:cheers: :beer: to Rick, Dale, James.
rear_shock_upper_reservoir hose.webp
rear_static_measurement.webp
rear_upper_mount.webp
 
clownmidget said:
...work on your truck much? Try all of the nuts holding your thirds onto your axle housing...or the nuts holding your driveshaft to the pinion...
Click to expand...

Ya got me there. I hadn't had any coffee yet. Now that I think about there are a few places most of which include close tolerances. It's not really worth getting into anyway, I was more concerned about the lack of thread engagement but whatever. The only place I've seen aviation use split washers was on small aircraft exhaust systems that used crush gaskets. It wouldn't be real practical to safety wire, lock nut or cotter key everything when building vehicles on an assembly line. We come from different worlds I suppose.
 
Mike-I though you were moving and selling the truck? Did you come to your senses? Great set up by the way.
 
Actually a surprising amount of requests for the adapters! You can get them from JKS engineering - altho they are kind of expensive from anywhere I've seen the adapters. I really don't want to make anymore! haha

The only unique one is the lower rear mount- maybe next time I meet the guys, we can talk about that one..
 
TroutRunner said:
Could someone explain valving in the 400/100 sense versus 255/70? Benefits? Downsides?

Also, what is entailed in rebuilding or servicing a shock like the 7100 on your own?

Thanks,

TR
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TR,

The 400 is the Rebound and the 100 is the compression number. Based on your vehicle and driving habits, you can change the shims in the shim stack to suit either number. Currently I have 360/130 but looking toward 400/130.

Revalving these shocks is quite simple, go here for more details: http://www.bilstein.com/7100_Rebuild.pdf

Come over next week when I revalve the shocks...again!

:flipoff2:


James,
How is the ride so far? First impressions?
 
landtank said:
there is always going to be overlap when people design and build similar products, but this one is a little too close don't you think.

Now if my best design for a caster plate was the same as Christo's, I might still make one for me but I'd never market it. A lot of work goes into designing this stuff and working out the details. To have someone then copy it is a little low down for my liking.
Click to expand...

Never mind that Christo copied the guys in OZ for the caster correction brackets. :rolleyes:
 
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