The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Hope you feel better soon.
Thanks for the updates.
Safe travels.

 

I think the Toyo's compliment your personal build design of your truck. I also like how they look on the OEM rim. I plan on going up one size from the original off road tire when the time comes. Thanks for the feedback and hope you feel better.

 

Those rear brake lines can be a real bitch. Line wrenches or not. Those clips can also be a real motherfucker.

 

Yeah they can

 

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a good choice. I ran the 265/75/R16 Duratrac for 40K miles. I liked the size, generally liked the tire, but not enough to buy them again.

 

This pic from yesterday. I may try and devise a solution. i am running trimmed front mud flaps... Wonder if someone would buy my OME takeoffs? Maybe I just give them away for free. Only 7K miles on them.

 

Very Good, I'll Keep That In Mind. Thanks.

 

Man I really need to do rear brake lines and longer shocks. Every time I am ready to do it though I read horror stories about getting the brake lines done and decide to wait. Nice write ups. I will be interested to see how the new shocks work for you.

 

Thanks. I was jealous of those who get them done in an hour with no problems.

Hopefully nobody else has to cut them out.

Thanks. Very busy month for a guy who wasn't going to work on the truck this month.

I got my all-pro u bolt flip directly from all-pro. Thanks for the guard recommendation.

 

did my brake lines on Friday, lucky not to have struggled like you. i guess because mine is a 2014 so the lines haven't seized up as much. still not a fun job so i can imagine how frustrating it was for you. hope i never have to do that again

 

Nice Jay! I saw your pic, Nice new red ones. So good to get them done.

I've still gotta do my fronts, but those should not be too bad now that I know what to do to get proper torque on them. Probably do them next time I take the wheels off and have enough time.

 

access is much easier on the front as well. i had mine up on a lift and was still cursing trying to get the the upper rear ones

 

Thanks! Your post was finally the incentive I needed to muster the sack to cut the green wire. Granted, I was nervous as a pregnant nun (straight to hell for that line) but with the post from @Benson X it was short and sweet:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/4lo-trac-abs-kill-switch-why-why-not.257444/

 

How did you get access to the lift? When I saw the pic, it looked like a shop. Most shops I assume won't let customers wrench in there. lol

This is excellent. So glad to hear that.

 

I would like to sincerely thank everyone who voted for my build in the TW contest for 2015. It's very humbling and inspiring. This year was a great year. I've learned so much about suspensions this year. And I hope that in 2016 I'll be able to finish my master plan for the truck, which is laid out in the first post of the build.

Thank you everyone! I am humbled and honored just to be a part of the TW community.

 

How to check for proper bump stop height.

Since I put the longer shock on the truck I need to be extremely careful with bump stop height. It's not something I want to get wrong and destroy my equipment. That would be a waste of money and time. And time is something that once it's lost it can never be replaced.

So the new rear shocks have the following specs:

New Silver Bilstein RCD/BE5-B110-T5

• Monotube, High Pressure gas shock
• Extended Length: 27.28"
• Collapsed Length: 16.34"

What do these extended and collapsed lengths really mean? The devil is in the details and I could not find them so I broke out a tape measure and started measuring.

I disconnected the shock, to let it fully expand and put a tape measure on it.


It is exactly 27.28" as measured from the center of the shock eye mount to just under the lower frame bushing washer. This is critical information for me.

A different view of the same picture above.

Then for fun (not really fun, shock is hard to compress), I measured the collapsed profile. That's my foot holding the piston rod in while I measured.
It's true it will go to 16.34" as measured from eye to lower frame bushing washer.

Next I reinstalled the shock into it's home on the frame and torqued everything to spec.

Next I carefully measured the length of the shock at static ride height as pictured above and got 21.75"

Then I proceeded to measure my Wheeler's Super Bumps.


Now putting all the critical information together.

It is unknown how much the super bump will actually compress under dynamic applications like a hard impact. It's been estimated this is 1.75"

The bump stop is polyurethane and it is dynamic, it's not a hard rubber stop like the Toyota Factory one. So I'll have to make an educated guess. I'm going to say that the super bump can compress all the way down to 1" tall. So looking at the pic above, that would mean up-travel of 5". Let's make that number negative 5".

Now lets do the math.

21.75" Shock length at ride height.
-5.00" Five inches max up-travel (my best guess)
_________
16.75" Compressed shock length.

One more math operation to arrive at the margin of safety.


16.75" Compressed shock length.
-16.34" MAX COLLAPSED LENGTH AS MEASURED AND ACCORDING TO MANUFACTURE SPECS
_________
0.41" Margin of safety.

That's cutting it close. I may add a 1/4" or 3/8" bump spacer just to be on the safe side.

Moar pics
Yellow line yields .41" of downtravel left. Red line is shock destruction.



Special thanks to @HBMurphy for scaring me into doing this crucial exercise.

EDIT on 10/9/2016 I added a 1/2" thick leaf to the Dakar pack, so safety margin has increased to 0.91"

 

This is why your build should have taken the crown this year. Nobody else actually does writeups on things like this so people can really understand how things work. Than you sir!

 

X13589643367!

I've learned more from this build thread and Crom in general than I have anywhere else. He explains the method to the madness; and for us who like to know "why" things work they way they do, it really is invaluable.

Looking forward to what's next @Crom

 

Why I switched from twin-tube shocks to Monotube shocks.

I have just completed swapping out all of my old OME twin-tube low-pressure Nitro chargers shocks to Bilstein 5100 series monotube high-pressure gas shocks. Why would I do that?

The short answer is better performance. But what does that really mean?

First a little basic info. A shock damper is designed to absorb kinetic energy from the spring and dissipate that energy as heat. It does this by forcing oil through small holes in a piston head attached to the piston rod.

There are a lot of resources on the net that compare the two shock design technologies. So I will summarize what I have learned and provide links to the sources for further reading.

First a picture. Monotube (Bilstein) on the left, and the twin-tube (OME) on the right.


The shock bodies have the same outside diameter. But the internals are radically different. Mainly the piston on the monotube is a lot larger. And the oil capacity of the monotube is also a lot larger. Bigger is better. But it doesn't end there. When it comes to heat dissipation, the monotube design is far more efficient because the oil and piston are in direct contact with the shock body. Heat can radiate right out to the atmosphere. The twin-tube can't do that. The heat has to be transferred from the inside tube to the outer tube, before being released into the atmosphere.



In addition to the advantages listed above, the 5100 Bilstein series allow for more wheel travel on the Tacoma and that is really important to me.

By switching out the front shocks, I gained almost 1.2" of travel. That's huge. When we lift the front with lift springs, performance will be hindered, mainly by loss of down travel. An example is when a pot hole or depression is encountered. With minimal down travel to soak up the dip, it will be a harsh event for the truck and passengers, whereas if the suspension can travel down because of a longer shock, it will help absorb energy and feel much smoother.

In the rear I gained a full 3" of wheel travel by switching shocks. That's pretty dramatic. Keeping wheels on the ground is crucial to maintaining stability and traction, especially off road.

Now I'm going to quote Bruce Loxton who works for and wrote a piece over at Kimberly Karavans. They build the worlds most advanced off road trailers in Australia, to the tune of $85K and beyond! They know suspensions for their environments and it's worth looking at for the Overlander as we have many similarities. Right off the bat these guys are pros, they attach thermal sensors to their shocks and collect empirical evidence. They know what works and what doesn't work for them based on scientific research and field testing.

His article I draw quotes from is titled: "The Myth of Dual Shocks with Off Road Caravan or Trailer Suspension" He makes a direct comparison of monotube shocks and the twin-tube design.

I suggest reading the whole article. Here are some relevant quotes.

What Bruce wrote in the end was really directed at long sustained washboarded road driving which sucks, but the research was very interesting.

Other useful vidoes I found for Shock 101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_ujrMY6Y6k
And
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA8z0P3RVog

^This video explained what happened when I manually compressed the OME shock by hand. It took like 30-40 seconds to expand. I thought it was broken, but both my front shocks did this. The fact is it may not expand, and that's okay, it's just a characteristic of a twin-tube shock. The monotube shock will expand every time.

KYB also has a nice back of the napkin comparison between the two shock designs I thought was good.

That's a long post.

Hopefully someone benefits from that. Not looking for a debate, shocks are like religion to some, just sharing what I read and learned recently.

 

Much appreciated!

Thanks!

Thank you.