Shock Rust

Serbonze

Serbonze

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Has anyone had their Bilstein 5100s rust? These are not even two years old. Any suggestions on how to treat it?


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Mine are a little over a year old with no rust. I would take a steel wire brush to that and get the rust off. Then I would put some Fluid Film on it so it doesn't happen again.

I guess there must be some serious salt there to make that galvanized steel rust!
 
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I just got off the phone with Bilstein and they said it's common based on all the salt in the air in Florida. I just pulled out the dremel and it is just surface rust. I'll just degrease everything and hit it with some rust converter.
 
I figured it had to be the salt in the air. Hasn't happened up here in the Pacific Northwest, but there's no salt in the air where I'm at.
 
Mine are like that after one winter. The body of the shocks are also corroded. It is a very common issue with Bilstein 5100's (google it).

I ran Bilstein HD (the yellow ones) and they barely rusted. I think they actually paint those shocks.
 
I did search for it prior to posting but all I found were posts about the rusting on the shock body itself, which I'm not experiencing.
 
Interesting, I have 5100's on the Suburban. With 175,000 miles on it, there is no rust on the shocks. I'm guessing that the shocks actually have about 100,000 miles plus. They don't look new, but they sure don't look like that!
 
Here a pix of my previous 5100's that I replaced last year. I think 3 or 4 winter's caused this...

bilsteins_zpsptujkzmw.jpg

The shaft was untouched though, like new. If only the entire shock was wrapped in that transparent sticker....
 
Yowza! Three or four year old shocks look like that!? Interesting observation about the lack of corrosion under the stickers. I wonder if you could put a thin, adhesive, shrink wrap type film over those and cut down on the corrosion. Maybe something like a plastikote or such like?
 
StG58 said:
Yowza! Three or four year old shocks look like that!? Interesting observation about the lack of corrosion under the stickers. I wonder if you could put a thin, adhesive, shrink wrap type film over those and cut down on the corrosion. Maybe something like a plastikote or such like?
Click to expand...

Maybe but I'd rather paint em. I'm gonna wait till this season if over and see how they look. If they start corroding like the XJ's 1 year old shocks then I'm popping off all 8, sanding, and painting them with my trusty Rustoleum Professional paint.

I think they pour more salt than snow falls around here. lol
 
That's probably a better solution.

We had some stuff down in the shipyard that we used on the parts we couldn't get to with a sandblaster and airless sprayer. IIRC it was called flocoat, or something like that. Nasty, smelly, sticky fluid that needed to be warmed up to apply. It was a brown, translucent color. Reminded me a lot of cosmoline. Anyway, you would flood the area that needed coating with this stuff, let it sit for a little bit to penetrate, and then drain it out before it got to cold to flow. Absolutely no corrosion on the treated surface, ever. You could never get it off of anything that it got stuck to, so your overalls were trashed and any tools that you used around it were permanently sticky and brown. I wish I had the NSN number for it. Now that stuff might be a corrosion prevention coating to look into.
 
Ahoragi said:
Here a pix of my previous 5100's that I replaced last year. I think 3 or 4 winter's caused this...

View attachment 6770

The shaft was untouched though, like new. If only the entire shock was wrapped in that transparent sticker....
Click to expand...

That looks like every set of Ranchos I have ever had on a vehicle and there have been a few.
 
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