The Badger gets a new Tough Dog suspension (1 Viewer)

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Do they make a 1 inch lift? Can’t find a 1 inch lift, been looking for months.
 
How's the suspension holding up? You've got more miles than anyone on this setup, and i'm getting ready to decide between this kit and OME.
 
How's the suspension holding up? You've got more miles than anyone on this setup, and i'm getting ready to decide between this kit and OME.
It's holding up fine. I've got close to 20k miles on it now. I am wishing I had got the heavier rear springs, but will probably add the slocruiser boss airbag setup in the future. One thing that I (and other TD owners) have noticed is that the TD doesn't seem to give as much height as OME. That is of course a tough thing to pin down because it's hard to compare apples to apples as everyones truck is setup a little different. I am always looking at distance to bump stops and what a truck is carrying when I check out another 60 series. I can say with certainly that my truck has more body roll than a 60 equipped with OME heavy/heavy suspension, but once again not a fair comparison as I don't have the heavy rear springs.
Here is my truck at 6,800 lbs this past summer (actually minus occupants so probably more like 6,300) - you could feel the load and I did get more body roll than I would have liked, but it was fine on the highway and trails for 9 days like this. Again I didn't get the "heavy" rears, and I think most folks with this kind of sustained weight with OME are doing the extra-heavy setup.
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One other thing I recently saw was the plastic shock boot on a brand new OME suspension melted and split (the left side, near the exhaust). The TD doesn't have plastic there, the sleeve is steel.

Hopefully some of this is useful to you.
 
Hey @Kleatus, how's this set-up treating you these days? Still happy?
I'm still happy with it, I haven't put the kind of miles on the truck in the last year that I have previously (quit DD'ing it in March) but we did do a 3k mile trip to Colorado again this past summer, again heavily loaded. I'd have to look but probably pushing 30k miles on the setup now. I did put my old airbags back in to compensate (again I didn't opt for the heavier rear springs but should have). I am still impressed with the shocks, they handle rough terrain great and feel great loaded up.
 
I'm still happy with it, I haven't put the kind of miles on the truck in the last year that I have previously (quit DD'ing it in March) but we did do a 3k mile trip to Colorado again this past summer, again heavily loaded. I'd have to look but probably pushing 30k miles on the setup now. I did put my old airbags back in to compensate (again I didn't opt for the heavier rear springs but should have). I am still impressed with the shocks, they handle rough terrain great and feel great loaded up.
2021 update?
 
2021 update?
Truck is in the shop waiting for me to finish wiring and plumbing up it's new drivetrain. I expect the suspension will perform the same way it did before when I roll it back out. If I didn't mention it before I think the medium springs are a little lower than OME, but I've had zero issues and have beat it hard. I really like the shocks, they are pretty cushy but respond well to big hits. It's more comfortable at high speeds over big hits like RR tracks than my Tundra on Bilstein 5100s. By far.
 
Truck is in the shop waiting for me to finish wiring and plumbing up it's new drivetrain. I expect the suspension will perform the same way it did before when I roll it back out. If I didn't mention it before I think the medium springs are a little lower than OME, but I've had zero issues and have beat it hard. I really like the shocks, they are pretty cushy but respond well to big hits. It's more comfortable at high speeds over big hits like RR tracks than my Tundra on Bilstein 5100s. By far.
I’m not looking to be tall. Mainly to loose the “mom’s station wagon” look of my 300k mi springs. Ride is more important
 
Since there doesn't seem to be a ton of info or end user reports yet out on there on the 60 series Tough Dog suspensions available from Trail Tailor ( @reevesci )I will post up, since I just installed one.

My 1989 FJ62 is my DD, and has a lot of miles. Rolled over 391k as of this morning to be more exact. I'm not sure what the original design life of the suspension was, but I'm pretty sure It has been exceeded several times over.

The truck takes me to work, gets wheeled, takes trips on the highway, goes camping and hauls stuff. It's got an ARB front bumper and 9500 lb winch up front as well. Without some creative assistance, the old suspension was nearly touching the bump stops all the way around.

Driving around town it wasn't that bad, but potholes or anything off the pavement required gritting your teeth and going at a snails pace.


I have been thinking about a new suspension for a bit, and decided to go for the Tough Dog. I got the bullbar+winch front springs, 0-660lb rears, 41mm foam cell shocks, steering damper, and greasable shackles. I got in touch with Jason on Thursday, and when I got home from work Saturday everything was at my door. That was quick!

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Everything was packaged well and arrived unscathed.

First thoughts-wow those shocks are beefy! Heavy too.
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Everything went on smoothly. I had the suspension apart about 2 years ago to replace the bushings with new OEM, so everything had been cleaned and anti-seized somewhat recently.

The front went on first:
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I need some sway bar extensions now.

Rear was next. I reused the OEM rubber spring isolated/locator pads as they were in good shape and fit the TD springs perfectly.
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I also built a bracket this morning to locate the axle end of the load sensing brake proportioning unit back to its original spot. That brought my brakes back to normal. I still need to re center my steering wheel as well.

I got out this morning and ran it down the highway to hit some forest service roads and see how it was going to perform. The first thing I really noticed was the immense improvement over drops, logs, rocks, etc. Before when I drove over a 5 or 6 inch log I would bottom out harshly no matter how slow I went. Now it is still a bump, but it's completely controlled and not harsh at all. I went over a handful of down trees like this, and not at a crawl.
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I ran the truck pretty hard and fast (well, for a '62 :D) down some forest roads for a couple miles and was very impressed with the shocks. They do a great job on big hits and those fast-appearing drainage cuts. I never bottomed out once.

I'm at my limit for pictures. Continued in the next post!
Did it come with left/right rears?
 
Did it come with left/right rears?
I believe so, because I think I mixed them up originally. Maybe a LHD vs RHD thing? I had to swap the springs because I first put them on wrong sides. After that it was perfectly even and has been ever since.
 
I believe so, because I think I mixed them up originally. Maybe a LHD vs RHD thing? I had to swap the springs because I first put them on wrong sides. After that it was perfectly even and has been ever since.
So you’d recommend running them as they intended? And not swapping. I’m really leaning towards tough dog if @trail-tailor can get it in
 
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