When spacer lifts go wrong

He's already lurking in this thread. I see him

Like I said, he was humble about it and he already knew Camburg reposted his picture and gave him a hard time about it already. I think he's a big boy and can take it.

Edit and he has posted right above me lol

 

Thanks. Helped me understand too!

What brand spacers were used?

Would the Low Range off road 3/1 do the same?

I don't have any spacers or any lift... I live on military disability and over 1000 bucks to lift the truck just won't ever be possible... I keep looking at the LRT 3/1 and they specifically say the way they are designed prevents this... It was supposedly tested on a taco in an off road magazine...

But that could be bullshit too... So I'm asking.

I do off road often. Like once a week at a MINIMUM. i also live a mile and a half from pavement and the limerock/dirt/mud road i live on gets very bumpy. Both with potholes and the washboard effect.

So is the LRT any battery? Or would all spacers lifts be unwise for my driving?

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWBXl6Ihidy/?taken-by=milkteacoma

If you read the 98+ comments on my original IG post, there is a reason why I waited this long for suspension. I was told to hold out for Bilstein's 8112s, it was suppose to release back in March, then in June and as of yesterday, it was confirmed that there is no solid update of the release of their new kit. So tomorrow when the businesses are official open is when I can figure out when suspension I can get right now.

Fortunately, there are people out there who are looking out and helping us getting my wife's truck back on the road. Don't worry about me. It's not my first time learning from my mistakes.

 

throw some 5100s up front for now man. you can get a set for like $200 until you figure out your end goal

 

If you still want to wait for those bilstiens you might be able to pick up someone's OEM take offs cheap and just be careful for a while.

 

I mean he bought a spacer lift so....

 

Thanks for the offer fellas, but I am going to FJ Summit in Ouray, CO in a few weeks and don't want the same issue to happen again, especially a few states away from home.

What's the saying? Go BIG or go home!? Not sure if I am going big BIG, but definitely not going home.

 

Thats why I chopped the pic and didn't include his IG or name, wasn't trying to kick a man while hes down

Although I may have stole his thunder on making this thread

Sorry Milk

 

I can attest to that as i've seen every vw bernie has built.

 

Yep. Previous owner put em on. Haven't had this problem though. Mobbed in the desert 60+ miles an hour and literally jumped it a few times. Nothing happened. Kings will still be in the near future though.

 

Seen it a hundred times​

 

Sorry man thats how people teach other people lessons. Parents did it when we were all little, government does it if you do something bad then you have to go to court in front of all your 'peers', and the same thing happens here. A spacer lift is like the misdemeanor offense of truck modification. Sure, as we have learned here, its not the end of your life, but its gonna cost you some money and some pride to fix that though, especially with it being so well documented both 1) how cheap, ineffective, and dangerous spacer lifts can be and 2) how expensive of a truck this is to buy new. Seriously if you can afford a tacoma but not longer struts instead of a hockey puck to simulate longer struts, and you STILL choose to mod your vehicle even though you already know you dont want to spend the money to do it right, quite simply just dont even be surprised when you dont get what you expect.

Seriously, its not like its a secret that spacer lifts are junk. Ignore that one guy who was/is going to come in here and say "spacer lifts arent that bad". Theres always gotta be one of them, but that doesnt mean they are right. As others have mentioned, spacer lifts eat up the end of your suspension travel, destroying your ability to offroad, or even soak up speed bumps and dips/ potholes in the road because all of those things would normally involve the strut articulating into its longest or shortest positions, albeit breifly. The spacer lift limits all of that so that anything above and beyond a certain threshold leads to catastrophic failure and potentially frame damage. The same force that broke that strut was absorbed by the coil bucket and LCA as well. SInce theres no way to really tell how much force was left at that point, it would be good to check things.

 

I drew a thing. Top row is stock. Red is lower control are, blue is where the top of the shock is mounted. Yellow is shock. Bottom row is with a green spacer puck installed.

Let's say the the 4600 shocks there have a maximum extended length of 20" and a max compressed length of 10" but when riding on flat level road the truck is right in the middle of that 10" travel at the 5" mark. Now let's put a 3" puck between the shock and the mount. Now instead of riding at that 5" mark, its riding at the 8" mark. 3" more compressed. The shock rides more compressed. But the rest of the suspension on the truck isn't. So the 5" of travel (each way) is still there. So when you go over a bump that would compress 5", the weight of the truck was on that shock alone instead of all your suspension working together with their limits and sharing the weight. Over compressed shock compressed the next easiest way which was to fold in half.

Also I am designing tires now, who wants a set? My engineering team says they might be noisy on the highway.

 

No problem, and I think I'd use a bomb suit to remove that coil lol!
Cheers!

 

All could have been avoid with proper bump stop or at least spacer in the bump stops.

 

And this is why I went long travel and custom kings....

 

@MilkTeacoma yours right?

 

Had spacers on many trucks. No problems. They were and are high quality and installed correctly.

 

ahh and to think, I was almost one of those fools. I saw a "lift kit" on craigslist locally and really considered purchasing it, but thankfully I asked the community and got plenty of feedback that it was a spacer/block lift so I did not make the purchase. Although the price of that kit was good, I would rather wait and spend more to get good quality so that things like this don't happen.

 

Jumped!