They originally told me there was 6 in another location but after the order that was corrected.
Fox 2.0 Front Shocks and Tower Relocation
- Thread starter freeskier93
- Start date
Yeah, I might be interested in taking a look. Now I'm looking at options for attaching the Poly lower mounts.
That part is miserable, no matter how you do it. Matt did a nicer job on his above than I did on mine. And I think we can do even better on the next one.
There's definitely improvements we could make - but it's good enough for now. The next person can benefit from what we learned
Shock is 250, DSC reservoir is 330, modifying the top cap and supplying the hose and fittings brings it up over 600 each corner.
I didn't do as well on pricing, and I ended up buying 14" reservoirs because that's all I could find in stock, and then I spent $88 each to replace the 14" tube with an 8" tube (I had to call in a favor to get the 8" bodies because those were impossible to find, too.) Here's my cost breakdown:
Shock - $293 (eBay was the only place I could find them)
14" DSC reservoir - $280
DSC installation on the shocks w/ re-valving (and the 8" reservoir bodies needed) - $294
Spacers for 1.5" mounting width - $12
So my total per shock was $879.
Then the Poly Performance mount was $113 per corner. So, about a grand per corner for shocks and mounts. Stupid money. Worth it? I hope so.
Also, be careful with the Poly Performance tower mounts. They had a run they outsourced to someone, and the top part of the weldment was overbent (in the photo below, the one on the left is wrong and the one on the right is correct - they were ordered a few months apart):
The replacement towers are in process right now (I hope to see them next week), so they are working on making things right. My point is - make sure you inspect them when you get them so you aren't surprised after you weld them in and try to mount the shocks!
Thank you that makes more sense, the guy I spoke with said $800 then when I hung up I started questioning since I asked for doing all 4. That was probably ball park for modification of two. I am still 8 months out the front shocks unless I start searching other sources.
Joys of apartment living and having nowhere to work on the Jeep.
You have to make sure we are discussing apples to apples. 800 would be about right for LSC reservoirs installed. I just paid slightly less than 1800 to get a set of DSCs installed on four shocks that I took to them.
Had I not needed to recoup some cost from that so badly, I would have had 4 nearly new LSC reservoirs for sale. I've got way too much out right now to not take advantage of a large credit on that bill for them.
That "bending" on those towers wouldn't even cause me to bat a single eyelash. Bending in quotes since that really isn't a bending issue. If you check the bend, it looks the same on all four eye side pieces. What is wrong is how they fixtured them for welding and like most places, they didn't use a piece of tube cut to length to hold the width correctly. They just hand fixtured and tacked in place. But again, that wouldn't even slow me down. I'd run a regular nut on that bolt, impact it tight and then remove it. Those two sides will suck right up to near perfection and certainly enough to work very well. In fact, I'd much rather deal with that than the ones that are too close together slightly that I have to spread some and still fight getting the shocks in.
3 bucks each for spacers is cheap. How thick is the wall on them?
If ya'll will ever start capping off the back of the spring perch after it is cut flush to the back edge of the axle tube, it gets to be far less miserable. Start right in with doing that and then drilling the spot welds on the cam horseshoe and get that off of there does wonders as well. That gives you a nice face to butt up against for the inside. If you need it to move out, weld a piece of 1/4" to it.
I like to weld a JJ washer in the slot and leave the top 40 degrees unwelded. That gives a lot of up and down adjustment to fine tune the height. In fact if you cap off the back of the spring perch, you can cut the inner leg that wraps around the tube off by continuing the line straight down. That leaves one leg to cope to the inner C which is minor.
We were talking the DSC, he said we would have to change to 2 1/2” reservoirs, new hose and cap for the shock. I may have discussed just the rears which would be in the ball park for the $800. I still am collecting parts so this project may be a while. He also said the DSC parts may take some time to get also. My Jeep is on the road now so these upgrades are not stopping me from using it.
It may be beneficial for the Poly tower and DSC folks to know that you need to have the fitting at the top of the shock converted to be a 90 and clocked straight up. They are able to be turned some and then locked back down with the jam nut but straight up is a good place to start. The tower winds up too close to everything to get the hose out from behind it any other way unless you want to cut some sheet metal.
You're right about it being a fixturing, rather than a bending, problem - I didn't look closely enough at the picture. However, I did initially investigate using them as-is and decided not to. I didn't take pics when I did this a couple weeks back, but I just took a few now to help explain. Here was my decision process (WARNING: If geeked-out engineers trigger you, skip this next section): First, the new spacers are 1/2" wide, and so is the shock bearing, so I stacked three of them on the bolt and tightened them down:
I didn't like how they're loaded (tight at the bottom of the picture and gaps at the top). That'll create a meaningful stress riser at the mounting point. I then loosened them to see if the bending was plastic or elastic. I want it to be plastic because these towers are not made from spring steel, and if the bending is elastic, the joint will loosen up over time due to creep (a/k/a cold flow). The bending was elastic (photo below is after the photo above):
Okay, so at this point, I'd not given up just yet. Using sockets/spacers, I put this in my shop press and started to use it to plasticly deform the ears by bending them further than the mounting width. What I discovered is that the ears, when welded in place, are so stiff that the deformation occurs in the back plan of the tower (it bows out in the middle by the ears). At this point, I decided a call to Poly Performance was in order to get the right parts, as the next step for me would have been to cut the ears off, fixture it properly, and re-weld them on. However, I paid someone else for that (Poly Performance). Again, Poly Performance has been great through this process are have promised to make it right.
Same as the 1.25" mounting width spacers that came with the shock (about .090"):
Yes, that is an excellent option. However, I chose not to go that route. I would have done the machining myself here at home (I'm lucky enough to have a buddy with a lathe and mill), but it would have required shipping twice because I had the reservoirs shipped directly to the tuner. The cost and time lost in transit bumped that option down the list for me. I asked the tuner to quote doing it (as a backup in case the 8" bodies didn't materialize). They quoted $100 per shock. The 8" bodies from Fox were $88 each, so it was an easy choice for me. Another advantage (albeit insignificant) was that the end cut and snap-ring groove after machining aren't bare aluminum because Fox anodizes after machining. Of course, the best option would have been to have patience and get the 8" reservoirs when available, but I'm not very patient right now.
You're right about it being a fixturing, rather than a bending, problem - I didn't look closely enough at the picture. However, I did initially investigate using them as-is and decided not to. I didn't take pics when I did this a couple weeks back, but I just took a few now to help explain. Here was my decision process (WARNING: If geeked-out engineers trigger you, skip this next section): First, the new spacers are 1/2" wide, and so is the shock bearing, so I stacked three of them on the bolt and tightened them down:
View attachment 354377
I didn't like how they're loaded (tight at the bottom of the picture and gaps at the top). That'll create a meaningful stress riser at the mounting point. I then loosened them to see if the bending was plastic or elastic. I want it to be plastic because these towers are not made from spring steel, and if the bending is elastic, the joint will loosen up over time due to creep (a/k/a cold flow). The bending was elastic (photo below is after the photo above):
View attachment 354379
Okay, so at this point, I'd not given up just yet. Using sockets/spacers, I put this in my shop press and started to use it to plasticly deform the ears by bending them further than the mounting width. What I discovered is that the ears, when welded in place, are so stiff that the deformation occurs in the back plan of the tower (it bows out in the middle by the ears). At this point, I decided a call to Poly Performance was in order to get the right parts, as the next step for me would have been to cut the ears off, fixture it properly, and re-weld them on. However, I paid someone else for that (Poly Performance). Again, Poly Performance has been great through this process are have promised to make it right.
Same as the 1.25" mounting width spacers that came with the shock (about .090"):
View attachment 354369
Yes, that is an excellent option. However, I chose not to go that route. I would have done the machining myself here at home (I'm lucky enough to have a buddy with a lathe and mill), but it would have required shipping twice because I had the reservoirs shipped directly to the tuner. The cost and time lost in transit bumped that option down the list for me. I asked the tuner to quote doing it (as a backup in case the 8" bodies didn't materialize). They quoted $100 per shock. The 8" bodies from Fox were $88 each, so it was an easy choice for me. Another advantage (albeit insignificant) was that the end cut and snap-ring groove after machining aren't bare aluminum because Fox anodizes after machining. Of course, the best option would have been to have patience and get the 8" reservoirs when available, but I'm not very patient right now.
The ears that spread after tightening, what did you torque the bolts to?
Good on the spacers. We see a bunch that are thinner wall that just distort like a crush sleeve.