I recently picked up a facebook "deal." I bought 6 Fox Factory Remote reservoir shocks for 200 dollars. The dude was cool, and made sure to temper my expectations. But, I like a challenge, I like to rebuild and restore stuff like this and 200 dollars isn't the end of the world to learn something about how these shocks are put together. I figured, even if I can't use ANY of them, I will learn how they are assembled, the best way to pull them apart, make and or buy the tools necessary, etc.
I guess they were from a Chevy Silverado with a 6" lift. No idea on brand or anything like that. They were advertised as 11.5" and 13" travel. They are older, since they have the chrome bodies and blue anodized rod ends and dust caps. They are 2.0's with 5/8" shafts and no adjustable anything.
Here they are, the night I got them. These are the longer ones. I'm assuming they were in the rear of the truck. They are actually 14" travel shocks and they are BEAT. The one on top has chrome pulling off the body, but it has resistance, so I think it has oil left in it. The bottom one is really bad. You can hear the rust inside (the guy I bought it from warned me too). It looks like whoever pulled these from the vehicle cut the bolts, or they were not set up correctly as the top caps are fairly damaged. Nothing functional, but not pretty either. Big gouges and what looks like sawzall blade marks.
Here are the other four. They were paired for the front end, two shocks per front tire. These are actually 12" travel shocks. The guy posting the ad only measured to the rubber bumper, not total shaft travel. So, these will be the ones I'm trying to get right to put on MY jeep. I believe them to be in better shape. Externally, they look much better. A couple of them demonstrate resistance, and the other two move pretty freely but nothing crunchy or sloppy. The weird thing is that each pair has one with resistance and one without....Probably coincidence. If you look closely, there is black tape on one of the hoses, maybe to keep poking stainless wires away from fingers? Or someone thought electrical tape could stop a leak in a hydraulic system. Regardless, all the hoses will be replaced with new. The stainless is too frayed for my liking.
I'm antsy, and even though I'm no where near ready to install these on my jeep, I had to take one apart just to satisfy my curiosity. I started with what I believe to be the worst one...and it was a hell of a battle to get it apart. I got pretty medieval on the dust cap, since it was locked into the body so badly (yes, the set screw was removed). I tried a pipe wrench and that just tore the aluminum. In the meantime, my spanner wrench came in, so next I tried that and managed to pull the pin holes open so that the cap would not hold torque from the spanner any longer. Since the cap was now garbage, I cut pieces of it out and made a flat for a 24" Crescent wrench to grab.
That finally did the trick. That brings us to the seal head. That part was an even bigger pain to get out. Galvanic corrosion is no joke! The first thing you need to do is drive it into the shock body to remove the circlip that holds the whole assembly together. That required a 3 lb sledge, 2" pipe, cut in half, and lots of cursing. So, the Seal head is garbage too. Circlip popped out nicely though. Next step is remove the shaft assembly from the body. The shaft assembly holds the seal head, a spacer, the valve stack, and piston. The seal head was stuck! Not a little bit either. I won't post my "solution" to get it free, but it did involve my 20T HF press, some chain, and a very scary couple minutes wondering if the press would break or the aluminum would finally give. I didn't injure myself or die, so I guess it worked, but I don't want to show anyone what I did...it was stupid.
Anyway, this is what came out...
I think someone decided to run saltwater as a shock fluid! The body is trash, its all pitted (as you might imagine). The seal head has separated into three pieces.
Here are the shims and piston.
Rebound side
Compression Side
And the piston itself
Lots of garbage. So, this shock has yielded some knowledge, a good shaft (its straight and nick free) and a good reservoir assembly. The rest will go into the trash bin. I'll probably try to pull the top cap/mount off, just to see what that takes. If I really wanted to, I could get replacement parts for everything I need. Not sure it would be cost effective, but I could do it, which is nice that the parts are actually available.
I'll post more pictures here as I go through the rest of them.
I guess they were from a Chevy Silverado with a 6" lift. No idea on brand or anything like that. They were advertised as 11.5" and 13" travel. They are older, since they have the chrome bodies and blue anodized rod ends and dust caps. They are 2.0's with 5/8" shafts and no adjustable anything.
Here they are, the night I got them. These are the longer ones. I'm assuming they were in the rear of the truck. They are actually 14" travel shocks and they are BEAT. The one on top has chrome pulling off the body, but it has resistance, so I think it has oil left in it. The bottom one is really bad. You can hear the rust inside (the guy I bought it from warned me too). It looks like whoever pulled these from the vehicle cut the bolts, or they were not set up correctly as the top caps are fairly damaged. Nothing functional, but not pretty either. Big gouges and what looks like sawzall blade marks.
Here are the other four. They were paired for the front end, two shocks per front tire. These are actually 12" travel shocks. The guy posting the ad only measured to the rubber bumper, not total shaft travel. So, these will be the ones I'm trying to get right to put on MY jeep. I believe them to be in better shape. Externally, they look much better. A couple of them demonstrate resistance, and the other two move pretty freely but nothing crunchy or sloppy. The weird thing is that each pair has one with resistance and one without....Probably coincidence. If you look closely, there is black tape on one of the hoses, maybe to keep poking stainless wires away from fingers? Or someone thought electrical tape could stop a leak in a hydraulic system. Regardless, all the hoses will be replaced with new. The stainless is too frayed for my liking.
I'm antsy, and even though I'm no where near ready to install these on my jeep, I had to take one apart just to satisfy my curiosity. I started with what I believe to be the worst one...and it was a hell of a battle to get it apart. I got pretty medieval on the dust cap, since it was locked into the body so badly (yes, the set screw was removed). I tried a pipe wrench and that just tore the aluminum. In the meantime, my spanner wrench came in, so next I tried that and managed to pull the pin holes open so that the cap would not hold torque from the spanner any longer. Since the cap was now garbage, I cut pieces of it out and made a flat for a 24" Crescent wrench to grab.
That finally did the trick. That brings us to the seal head. That part was an even bigger pain to get out. Galvanic corrosion is no joke! The first thing you need to do is drive it into the shock body to remove the circlip that holds the whole assembly together. That required a 3 lb sledge, 2" pipe, cut in half, and lots of cursing. So, the Seal head is garbage too. Circlip popped out nicely though. Next step is remove the shaft assembly from the body. The shaft assembly holds the seal head, a spacer, the valve stack, and piston. The seal head was stuck! Not a little bit either. I won't post my "solution" to get it free, but it did involve my 20T HF press, some chain, and a very scary couple minutes wondering if the press would break or the aluminum would finally give. I didn't injure myself or die, so I guess it worked, but I don't want to show anyone what I did...it was stupid.
Anyway, this is what came out...
I think someone decided to run saltwater as a shock fluid! The body is trash, its all pitted (as you might imagine). The seal head has separated into three pieces.
Here are the shims and piston.
Rebound side
Compression Side
And the piston itself
Lots of garbage. So, this shock has yielded some knowledge, a good shaft (its straight and nick free) and a good reservoir assembly. The rest will go into the trash bin. I'll probably try to pull the top cap/mount off, just to see what that takes. If I really wanted to, I could get replacement parts for everything I need. Not sure it would be cost effective, but I could do it, which is nice that the parts are actually available.
I'll post more pictures here as I go through the rest of them.
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). The adjustment on those does make a perceptible difference, but when I think about mountain bike suspension (air spring rate and volume, high and low speed rebound and compression, all individually adjustable and totally rebuildable) most car stuff is laughable.