3rd Gen Owners with King Coilovers

Weight's by product is height, right? Think of it that way. Also, this is a 2+ ton truck. adjusting preload .25-.5" won't change your compression/rebound and valving feeling to that degree. also, you can think of it in the way of racecars. or track cars. Some coilovers don't offer compression/rebound settings, but you can still corner balance the car with different preload settings for each corner. In that case, you may or may not have the same "ride height" per corner, but will have different preload. Adding a spacer on top of the suspension will mess with WAY more of what you're trying to avoid than just by adjusting preload.

 

Pre-loading a coilover does not change the spring rate in any way (or make the spring feel harder or softer). All it does is change the loaded suspension travel and the position that the shock/spring travels in. The secondary effect is having a change in ride height. For this reason it is not a problem to adjust one coilover relative to another provided that the difference between the two is not huge. In our case the extra .5" of preload required to level out the drivers side is a very small percentage of the overall suspension travel. The only way this could be an issue is if you have one side at say 3" pre-load and the other at 0" because in extreme cases you may fully compress the pre-loaded spring before the the non-preloaded side. Also the amount of downtravel would be different between the two sides. Basically the amount and position of suspension travel would be drastically different between the two sides.

Maybe we all already knew this.. in case not, hopefully it puts some peoples mind at ease who are thinking about leveling their ride via adjusting preload.

 

Literally what I was trying to put into words, but couldn't. But yes, this.

 

This is what I was looking for. Thanks @c4lvinnn @wyant !

 

I have had two sets of king coilovers...but on both sets the drivers side had two more threads of preload than the passengers. With that being said, I followed suit with King and just kept the drivers at 2 threads more preload after I adjusted them.

Coot

 

For people with Dakar rear leafs, were these shocks long enough for full droop/flex? I heard DSM does some mods specifically for Dakars, but they haven't answered my email on what they specifically do or if it's required.

 

Does anyone knows if Dsm do installs? I could ask them but someone here might have the info.

 

Are you asking about the non extended travel? If so then I can't answer that. I have the extended travel and they definitely have plenty of droop to fit the dakars.

@Ducman4x4 I believe they do.

 

Yeah, the non-extended travel ones. Straight off the shelf from King ones.

 

Can't answer that one for ya then, sorry. But you should get the extended travel ones anyway

 

I asked them this, they do not.

 

Checked on DSM's website and I only see the extended travel versions for the front. Do you have a part number for the rear extended travels?

 

This is my order receipt from DSM. They're not extended travel technically for the rear I guess.... See below

 

Taking a guess here but DSM might have customized yours to work with the Dakars specifically, since you have "Dakar" noted as a line item.

Good to know it works well with the dakars though. Still debating going with an Icon AL just to bring the rear up about 1.5 inches to match the front.

 

Yeah, very likely so. I spoke with Micah about it via PM here about everything I would be ordering and installing, and then I was sent an invoice to my email with all the info. DSM's customer service is great, and I would definitely recommend them for any purchases.

 

Actually, from the invoice, it looks it's still under the rear shocks line item. -2 quantity removed from 25005-001 (standard length rod end) and +2 quantity on 25005-002 (+1" length). Looks like that's what they do for Dakars.

 

does anyone run dust/rock shields on their shocks? If so, does King make them?

 

Here is the answer from dsm them self!

 

1" from the rod ends. Do they actually shorten the piston and rod to have a shorter extended and collapsed length?

 

Well that settles it