Best way to clean King shocks??

Holy crap. I have had my shocks for 4 years and they look nothing close to this!
I live in so cal but my truck has seen it all: dirt, mud, rain, sand, pismo beach and snow
Maybe he meant 5k miles since most recent rebuild?

 

I got the fronts pretty well cleaned up. Will get some pics tomorrow and post them. Pretty happy with the out come, I just hope they don't need rebuilding once I put them on.

 

You did well cleaning them up, but whoever sold them to you was definitely not honest about "6 months old" or "only 5k miles"... But you're obviously making the best of it and buying used suspension is always a gamble because there really is no way to validate the history or usage, outside of tearing the shock bodies apart.

I would absolutely find a paint or permanent protective finish to coat them with as all of the aggressive blasting/sanding/cleaning, etc has broken down the original coating and exposed the bare metal material.

After painting, I would keep them sprayed with FLuid Film or something of the like to keep em lubed.

 

I dont know if this would work for winter use ? Its in italian but the pictures says it all.
http://forumas.dopecars.lt/viewtopic.php?uid=17&f=40&t=4801&start=0

 

So the idea of covering a shock/coilover assembly is hotly debated:

FOR - protects, shields, covers and resists contaminate/particulate infiltration (seems like a good, commonsense idea?)

AGAINST - does not allow moisture to escape, allows heat to build up. When small particles do find a way to enter the boot/sleeve/cover, they are trapped and often circulated around causing more damage than if there were no sleeve. (but why do the big dawgs, King/ICON/Fox not provide covers with their units...maybe there is more logic behind it?)


FYI - I think ICON is the only vendor who sells dedicated coilover sleeves that fit the tacoma-sized aftermarket coilover assembly. But I haven't checked fleebay or aliexpress

 

When ill be their with my build ill get some for winter because Canada is unforgiving on coilovers and its only 5 months, i kept serching after i postd this and found subaru clubs in Ontario being really fond of them and saving alot of trouble. One even did one side of his car and left the other without pretty crazy the difference. I understand the cons but being up here in the extreme salt belt i don't see any other solution since no one seems to have stainless coilover lifts.

 

Yeah, if I lived in the northeast US or a coastal town (salty air/water) I would definitely get shock boots. Here is another idea for the rear:







last one is not a tacoma, and even worse, the orientation is flipped on tacomas so the piston shaft is more exposed from filth and debris flung up by the tires, so I've read that you keep the bottom of the boose loose to allow particles to fall out,the boot will serve to keep a bunch of crud out and protect the piston shaft, but not trap in anything long term

 

Any recommendations to clean this up?

 

I could NEVER keep my bilsteins from rusting under the clear coat, not matter how much coats of clear i put on em‍♂️

 

I am looking into ceramic coating mine. Has anyone done this?

edit, now considering just using boeshield t9 on them.