Poor Man's Quicklift? A research thread

[Ronin8002]

After thinking and learning a bit about how the Rancho Quicklifts work in this thread http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2697205&postcount=18 I think I figured out that the Quicklifts are simply strut assemblies with a coil spacer and an adjustment mechanism to control the dampening of the shock

I started wondering if there was a generic knock off version coil spacer that Rancho uses to achieve the lift in that kit. If there is...then people could just buy that and install it on their OEM strut assembly...gaining lift and saving money over the Quicklifts. A lot of the ones I've seen are made of softer rubber and I think that might have a short life...so I went and looked at Energy Suspension's site:

http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/Energy-Suspension-Coil-Spring-Isolators.asp

Check out Style "D", second from the bottom. I haven't gotten really accurate measurements yet, but one of these universal coil spring spacers might work on the struts we have.

The overal shape is right. It would fit at the bottom of the coil where it sits halfway down the strut. These are all 5/8 in height (except one option that is 9/16")...which I think would give about a 1" lift based on the way our suspension geometry works. It might also be possible to stack another one of those other flat type of isolators on that page underneath the "D" type to get a bit more lift.

Probably wouldn't be good to go too crazy with this though...by installing these you are preventing your coil spring from being able to fully compress, which will limit your uptravel to some degree, however minor...and that might start to impact ride quality.

It's just a question of the other dimensions...there are a few to choose from. At less than 10 bucks a pop I thought I'd throw the idea out there if someone was doing their struts anyway and wanted to try it.

Anybody got any thoughts or ideas?

 

[lynchy wa]

Look's like a good idea, actually make that an excellent idea. Hell, it'd be worth forking out $40 just to see if it work's then another $40 to double up to see if that's a goer. 10/10 for thinking outside the square mate.

 

[Ronin8002]

hmm I think these are flat on the bottom, meaning it won't sit right in the place where the bottom of the coil spring sits. Looks like it would have to go on top under the cap that goes over the coil spring.

Funny, that's exactly how the quick lift is set up. Unless you get the "loaded" version which comes with the coil springs installed already...the spacer is on the bottom of the coil on those because it has a flat flange and not a spiral one like the OEM struts.

 

[lynchy wa]

I saw some on ebay down here that were between 15mm-50mm. Fitting seem's straight forward. It may be possible to adapt the spacer to fit the lower seat.

 

[Ronin8002]

Referring to the original topic, it appears from comparing pics of the Struttek strut assemblies side by side with the OEM type that the Strutteks include a spring preload spacer already (at the top of the spring seat, not the bottom). Haven't verified that yet though.

It does seem to make sense given that the Strutteks result in lift after installation.

I'll have to try and see the two types in person to compare and verify.

If this is true, then installing Strutteks could be a cheap way of achieving mild suspension lift. I might look into this later when it's time to swap out my still-original struts.

 

[2Trux]

If the bottom of the spring needs a ramp and is not flat the lift will be the height of "D" which is only 1/4". If you could build a piece to install on top of the existing spring seat to make it flat then installed these then you could get a lift that would be maybe 1" at the strut.
But if you are going to do all that you would be better off making a spacer to put on top of the strut( Hmm... where have I heard that before)

 

[Ronin8002]

The benefit of loading the spring as a method of lift is the shock still tops out where its supposed to, meaning that at full droop you still won't have the spindles in the front hitting the coils (like we do with the strut spacers).

It is possible that the strutteks achieve lift not by compressing a stock length spring with a spacer, but rather by longer springs. Downside of this (if true) is that the springs (and therefore the lift) will settle over time.

If the strutteks use the same length springs as OEM, then I wonder now if the Strutteks might be the best answer for a non-strut spacer lift since you get both new struts and a lift out of the deal too.