Outback Armour shocks

[kblof]

Hi all, I’ve been debating on getting a more forgiving shock absorber to replace the Bilstein’s I inherited with the NT we bought 12 months ago. After ringing/emailing numerous companies, I found the OA guys very helpful and their knowledge of their product to suit my needs was impeccable. Some companies were rude some could not be bothered returning emails. It was a tossup in the end between the OA and Ultimate Suspension as Ken was extremely helpful and knowledgeable.
It took me 6 hours to replace all four shocks, rear upper spring rubbers and strut tops. The beauty of the OA struts is they came with a 10 and a 5 mm spacer below the removable spring seat which allowed me keep my Kings 34H front springs. I was going to upgrade the springs but after talking to the helpful guys at Kings they convinced me to keep the 34H and put in the 10 mm spacer.
Driving around today I am so happy I have spent the money on these shocks they are still firm for cornering and under braking but you don’t feel every single little imperfection in the road. With the 10 mm, spacer in the front they went from 525 mm to 550 mm and rear as expected stayed at 570 mm. I am hoping the front will settle and come down to 545 mm; I will have to wait and see.
Info I found: front struts are the same length as the Billies, rears were approx. 15 mm longer. Shock for shock the OA were heavier due to the twin tube design I suppose and felt extremely well made.
I have no affiliation with Outback Armour just very impressed with these shocks.

[cookie]

Hi, I'm considering OA suspension for my NW pajero and came across this post.
How has it been performing? Any issues?
thanks

[old Jack]

Why is there no boot on the Outback Armour front strut?

After multiple Bilstein failures I am now running Dobinson Monotubes (not the remote reservoir series) on my Challenger. Only have 30,000kms on them so early days but I had my first Bilstein failure at 30,000kms.

The Dobinson are a softer in compression and firmer in rebound than the Bilsteins and suit my requirements better, particular off road and remote touring at GVM+ loads.

The Dobinson are significant larger and stronger built than the Bilsteins.

Dobinson for Gen 4 front strut PN IMS43-50783, rear IMS43-50784.
Front strut has adjustable coil seat but this must be adjusted prior to fitting the coil.

OJ.

[Scooby]

What adjustment is on the front strut?
Height? How much?

[old Jack]

What adjustment is on the front strut?
Height? How much?

The threaded section on my front struts is more than 100mm in length, however there is a minimum height required so the UCA does not contact the strut body at full droop.
Because of the suspension geometry of IFS a 10mm adjustment on the spring seat will result in about a 20mm change in ride height.

Ultimately you are limited to how much precompression you can put on the coil before the coil binds or you runout of droop travel. It is a legal requirement to retain at least 2/3's of the original droop travel, you also want to do this from a handling point of veiw. If you have insufficient droop travel you will get unwanted traction control and ABS activations both on and off road.

Going too high and too higher spring rate only results in strut, bushes, mounts and tyre failures as well as a poor ride quality and handling on and off road.

OJ.

[sharkcaver]

OJ, I hope they build the Mono's better than the MRR's I had (I doubt it). Strut tops collapsed x 2 - no excuses there, failed vulcanised bushes in the rear and the rears are flogged, knocking like a dunny door in the wind. They have done some work, but this excludes my CSR attempt as they were replaced after that trip, but the troubles continued. I have wiped my hands of them.

[old Jack]

OJ, I hope they build the Mono's better than the MRR's I had (I doubt it). Strut tops collapsed x 2 - no excuses there, failed vulcanised bushes in the rear and the rears are flogged, knocking like a dunny door in the wind. They have done some work, but this excludes my CSR attempt as they were replaced after that trip, but the troubles continued. I have wiped my hands of them.

Hi Shane,

I am aware of your problems with the MRR Dobinson and understand your position.
This weighed heavily on my mind however there is another forum member who runs the non MRR Monotubes on his Challenger and had done quite a bit of remote touring at GVM+ and has had no issues with the Dobinson Monotubes.

I had 3x front strut failures with Bilstein in under 90,000kms of travel, 1 was covered by warranty by the supplier and not Bilstein the other 2 failures that were also outside the 12 month /20,000 km warranty were also refused. The rear Bilsteins lasted the 90,000km, however they were tired when I changed them out. It is not that the Bilstein is a bad product it was just did not suit the Lovells coils I was using and the type of driving I do. The front Lovells coils with the Bilsteins meant that there was a side load applied to the piston rod so the rod seal chopped out and the rod scored so they were uneconomical to repair. I always felt the Bilstein were too hard on compression and too soft on rebound for my requirements so when I was looking for replacement struts and shocker there was nothing that could match the specs of the Dobinson Monotubes in the sensible upper mid price range. Only time will tell if the quality is there for long term durability.

95% of forum members do not do the extended very heavily loaded remote trips so most aftermarket suspension last a reasonable time as do most AT tyre's. It is the 5% that do the regular heavily loaded trips that really push everything to the limit that tend to have the failures. The likes Kiwi1973 who is crossing Asia and Cruisn06 travelling through Africa, both very heavily loaded and for months on end, these guys are taking their setups to the extreme level of durability testing.

I also think we can sometimes have a too high expectation of the products we use, maybe it is the "over marketing" by manufacturers and suppliers that fool us so we do not analyse, understand and appreciate the extreme loads and forces we can place on vehicles and components when we travel heavy, over poor tracks for extended periods.
Good commercial tour operators do a lot of preventive maintenance by changing suspension and tyre's out early so they are less likely to have problems when remote travelling, whereas many recreational 4wders who travel remote and heavy tend to wait too long before changing tyre's and suspension due to costs. Even I have been guilty of the "one last trip" for tyre's and suspension, sometimes I getaway with it and sometimes I do not. When you are young and enthusiastic you can often see getting bogged for hours and repairing tyre's/suspension mid trip as part of the adventure but as you get older this is not the sort of adventure you are wanting!
We get grumpy if our beers are shaken or warm, if they are both then it is a disaster!

All the best,

OJ.