Bkennedy's SAS and Rebuild Thread

[BKennedy]

I'm good acquaintances with one of the guys in the shop over at FOA and can probably get you in touch with him for help if Chris comes up as a zero...

That would be a great favor and would be appreciated. Lets see what they do first. You could direct him to this thread because I know several people who are waiting on an outcome before purchasing new shocks.

 

[BKennedy]

Got an email from F-O-A. As usual, short answer.

What I sent;


>
> Please read the entire message. I know its a little wordy.
>
> I purchased a set of your 2.0, 14" travel coil over shocks in June or July
> of last year. I have had problems with them. I am really trying to make them
> work. I purchased them for a solid axle swap into a Explorer. I got it on
> the ground in late October. Took it on one weekend trip, shocks worked fine.
> Took it on a 700 mile highway / off-road adventure on the Mojave Trail last
> month. Shocks got real soft. Took them apart to re-valve, found out gas had
> gotten past the reservoir piston (IFP) in both shocks. I called and was told
> I needed to purchase seal kits. Cleaned them out, re-valve, new seals, new
> oil. While doing that, I discovered slivers of aluminum in the oil. Also
> some of the ports had never been cleaned up and had slivers hanging off
> them. They were also valved wrong, but that might have been the fault of the
> vendor I ordered them through.
>
> Inside of the reservoirs looked like they were never smoothed/honed. You can
> actually feel the scoring with your fingers. I can send you a picture of the
> inside of the reservoir if you wish. You can plainly see that the scoring
> was part of the manufacturing process and not from the piston movement,
> since its the entire length of the reservoir.
>
> Put it all back together a few days ago. Now the reservoir on one is leaking
> oil out of the schrader valve end with less than a mile on them. I am
> getting very frustrated, and a little disappointed. I think the problems I
> am having are due to the reservoirs not being properly honed or smoothed
> during manufacturing, causing the seals to quickly fail. Is there anything
> that can be done on your end to help a customer?
> Regards/
> Brian

What they replied:

I'll send you out a set of reservoirs. Give me the shipping address.

So, they are officially back on my would purchase again list, as long as I get the new reservoirs installed and they work. I am not sure who replied as they did not leave a name and I wanted to send the message through the general contact email for F-O-A.

Edit: It was Chris.

 

[Rick]

It's good to hear that they will be sending you another set What a PITA though!

 

[BKennedy]

It's good to hear that they will be sending you another set What a PITA though!

Yep.

I let the vender I got the shocks through know what I was dealing with. He says if they still don't work out, he will give me a "smoking deal on some Fox or Radflo shocks." Another shameless plug for davesoffroadsupply.com. Great to deal with. He even offered to purchase the seal kits but I declined. Not his fault and shouldn't end up being his problem.

I had a little fun yesterday and made a new seat back latch for the driver seat. It has been broken for several years, and I misplaced the broken part. Made a new, improved version that is smaller and lower so it doesn't get constantly bent with the seat side pushing against it. Check it out;

I tacked it in place so I can wiggle it off if something else breaks underneath.

I am looking into having the seats reupholstered or replaced. I have got a few quotes and it should be cheaper to reupholster the existing seats in some type of fake leather. The rear seat only has a few tears in the perforated section of the seat so I would not have to do the entire thing. Fronts are coming apart.

 

[sirhk100]

Huh, I need to do that exact same thing on my driver seat someday! Currently it involves a screwdriver to adjust.

 

[BKennedy]

Huh, I need to do that exact same thing on my driver seat someday! Currently it involves a screwdriver to adjust.

Design flaw. The seat flattens out when my big rear sits in it, which pushes against the latch, bending it over. Eventually, it breaks. I did not remove the old parts of the latch since it would have required more work than I was willing to do for a latch. I made the new latch so it would fit over the old broken parts on the pins.

 

[BKennedy]

Khris, I was looking at your photobucket pics and remembered you said you have a lot of positive caster in your Explorer. You are not kidding. The front tire leans over more than it turns. Does that make it turn better by keeping the tire from tucking under while going fast?

 

[sirhk100]

In regards to the seat... Yeah, I'll have to look at what's left of mine someday and see if something as simple as that will work also. It was broke when I bought it and I just adjusted it to me and have forgotten about it since. Would be nice I guess to fix someday. Most of my effort is still going to my F150 hoopty... I've got an end somewhat in sight with possibly hitting the dirt for testing as soon as mid July so I'm trying to stay focused on that and blowing off the minor to do stuff of things like this...

It basically is down to wiring 100% of the truck, slapping the shocks on when I get them June 6th and firing it up, then driveshaft and exhaust and it's ready for testing. Not finished but at least runable. Still will have to mount body work, get glass installed, sexy up the interior, etc...

 

[sirhk100]

LOL, I'm guessing you saw the pictures backed into the parking spot at my work with the tires cranked over? Almost comical right?

I'm at like 17 degrees of caster if I remember correctly. I'd always learned that looking from the side of your vehicle if you drew an imaginary line thru the center of your upper and lower ball joints you want that line to hit the ground right where the front contact patch of your tire is at the ground. Now lets go a bigger tire and lower pressures, you can kind of assume that contact patch just moved further forward. Now compensate for it in the dirt and that the tire sinks into the dirt and that point again just got moved further forward.

I was told this YEARS ago at different times by both Perry McNeil and John Emke at Autofab. I figure both those dudes have been around the block when it comes to building a good TTB setup.

Now with that said, my particular front end, I can't take credit for truly building the beams or the radius arms. I did modify both the beams and the radius arms sombe but what I did didn't effect the caster of how they were built. I do actually "believe" mine is a bit excessive.

Seat of the pants though, I can't tell anything negative from it. The tires for the most part are wearing pretty even and well. It drives straight as can be. At speed the steering feedback is good but not excessive. Crawling I don't notice anything out of the ordinary.

It definitely is visually shocking though when you see what my front end does in turns. The caster literally converts into camber when turning. When backing up, with how my steering is and if turning when backing up it sets into a toe'd in scenario so the front kinda squats and widens and it really exaggerates the amount the tires roll over.

Is it right or wrong? ehhhh, gut feeling I should be more in th 10-12 degree range but like I said, other then visual, I'm not noticing any negative effects and really have no complaints. If I had to list my complaints on my explorer as it sits right now...

• Low range isn't low enough
• front approach angle limits me on some waterfall climbs
• rear leafs need to go to deaver to get an additional 2" of ride height
• rockers are too low in comparison to jeeps (can't do much about that though)

Really that's it... Atlas would fix the 1st, I'm back and forth on if a custom bumper will really get me the clearance I want on the 2nd, #3 will probably happen later this summer, #4 , well it is what it is, my rockers were built knowing they'd get abused. LOL

 

[BKennedy]

Today, I R&R'd the shocks. Did not have time to charge them to see if the seals hold. It went fairly smoothly, I am just slow. Everything was harder to assemble, so I hope that means they sealed better.

I had a funny incident while taking apart the new reservoirs. They sent them assembled, so I took them completely apart to clean them out and see what the insides looked like. Much better this time around. Even came with the 90* swivel fittings. I was having trouble wiggling the schraeder valve side out of the reservoir body. FOA says that if it is difficult to remove, you can add a little air and "pop" it out. It pop'd alright, all the way across the garage, bounced off the wall and ended up on top of some cabinets. I traced its trajectory by locating the dent in the drywall. Glad I had my hands out of the way and it was not damaged.

 

[FR-425]

Now you can take the old reservoirs to a machine shop, get them honed smooth and use the redundant parts to build a spare set. Nice!

 

[Rick]

Amazing how much power just few PSI can produce. I've done the same with a transmission piston

 

[BKennedy]

Now you can take the old reservoirs to a machine shop, get them honed smooth and use the redundant parts to build a spare set. Nice!

I hope it doesn't come to that. I think if this doesn't work, I will be selling them on CL and going with another brand.

 

[FR-425]

Well if it does work out, then you have a second set ready to go 10,000 miles down the road. At whatever the normal rebuild interval is.

 

[BKennedy]

Took the Explorer out for a short road trip today. Steering is a little more sensitive with the 4.5* caster bushings installed, but I got used to it fast. Makes a tight turn now. Only dirt it saw was the driveway to the ranch, but I did go over some speed bumps without slowing down in the Vons lot (mall crawler, oh yeah). Doesn't seem overly stiff on compression and rebound was fine. I am hoping on Wednesday to drive it out to east county, maybe Corral Canyon, for a better suspension test.

 

[Rick]

Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't hear about the speed bumps causing another leak

I hope this new set does the trick

 

[sirhk100]

Any word on the change? Noticeable? Better? Worse? Happy? Ehhh, so so?

 

[BKennedy]

Any word on the change? Noticeable? Better? Worse? Happy? Ehhh, so so?

Much better! Went to Corral Canyon on a spur of the moment drive. Just threw the tool box in the back, grabbed some water bottles and the dog, and hit the road. Much better on the faster bumps and washboard roads, better on the freeway, better on the low speed turns.

On the trail, it was a little more stable. I ran the Bronco Peak Bypass up to Gun Slinger, thinking it would be a moderate trail with a few tight spots. I found out its all tight turns, steep, sandstone hills and huge rocks. It was one of those moments where you are thinking "should I, or should I not?" I picked the first option since I still had mobile phone service. That new suspension totally rocks the rocks. Just drove right up, over, around, etc.. Great fun. Only one "Oh s#$t moment" when it slid to the left into an embankment as I was going up a steep and slippery, rut-filled sandstone grade. Luckily the front tire took the hit instead of the side of the Explorer. I just hit the front locker switch, turned hard right and drove up the hill.

 

[BKennedy]

Couple pics (not the hard part of the trail because I did not want to get out of the driver seat);

The suspension is no where near the down travel limit in the pics.

 

[Rick]

I'm glad that your persistence has paid off