Shock absorber changes in the field (desert)

Hi triton man,
maybe you are over-thinking it a bit. If u r concerned, replace your shockers before you go with good quality strong after-market shocks. I have flogged my Koni shockers for 120,000 kms without a whimper from them. Or, you could take your time and spare your current shockers the grief of going too fast
ian.

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Hi T.M.,

I do carry spare shockers because I do go extensively into remote locations and over atrocious tracks.

But bear in mind that the failure of a shocker does not in itself render the vehicle un-drivable. Provided that you compensate and drive appropriately, you can continue to a place where assistance may be obtained.

Our last trip down the CSR, I carred new rear shocks for the GU, but never needed them. Allow plenty of stops for shocks to cool, don't drive to fast and you should be ok. Have done the CSR twice, and never had to replace a shock.

Triton Man

You could carry one front and rear. As noted above, check out the suspension before you go and replace shocks in need.

Your greatest defence against suspension failures in remote areas and on rough tracks is to drive the vehicle in a way appropriate to your load and track (read slow down) and check and tighten bolts every other day.

Most suspension failures occur due to either a lack of pre-trip preparation and inappropriate speeds over corrugations - or both!

In terms of our vehicle weight, I suggest you do a couple of reviews over time of the gear you are taking, usually on reflection you will find plenty of items you can discard before you go...

Enjoy your trip...

Cheers, Baz - The Landy

What suspension do you have now , is it still std or has it been changed , std shocks are very prone to failure on corrugated roads .

I would be more worried about overloading the Triton and breaking it in half .

replacing shock absorbers is not a difficult job.

Most of the shock absorbers that are inside coil springs on cars load from the bottom.
Bolts up into the lower wishbone from below and the top fixing bolt from above.
It does mean you have to get the front end quite a bit off the ground to allow withdrawal and insertion of the shock.

cheers

Triton Man,
I have melted the bushes on my front suspension on the CSR. A lot of the driving on corrugations requires speed.
Have a practice at removing a shock absorber at home. The No1 thing I have done is get rid of the nylox nuts and fit 2 lock nuts. It can be very difficult to undo a nylox nut as you need to hold the shock absorber from turning - not easy even at home.
The styrene type bush is best for the corrugations. I did carry a spare front and rear shocker as well as bushes.
Enjoy the trip.

Fit Koni shocks, they're built for it.

As one guru said, shocks are devices for converting motion to heat.

On long corrugations the average unit can't dissipate the heat fast enough for long enough. Even if the shock doesn't fail catastrophically excess heat trashes the oil and shortens the service life.

If you are worried, change out the shocks before you leave and carry the rear ones as spares.
I'd also make sure your springs are up to the load. The springs carry the weight and if they are not up to the job, then the shocks have to work so much harder through a much longer stroke to control the movement. Stiffer springs that don't allow the vehicle to oscillate up and down, or regularly bottom out, will allow the shocks to cope much better.

I replaced the the front springs on my BT50 (similar setup) and if you have heavier springs fitted, then taking the strut assembly out and replacing the shock adsorber component, then it isn't something I would want to do track-side. It was a real struggle to compress the spring and failure of a spring compressor could easily result in the loss of fingers.
I had 3 x h/duty spring compressors on there and they ended up in the bin after as I had no confidence they would safely do the job again.

Mick Hutton (Beadell Tours) has written a comprehensive article about shock absorbers with the focus on Koni brand. (Click here)
I know Mick and place great trust in his experience, knowledge and skills.

Talk has it that Mercedes needed more shocks flown in due to the speed they tried to traverse the CSR in, so i wouldn't be concerned with that in relation to your travels.

If you are serious about taking spare front struts (shocks) you need to take an assembled strut complete with spring. That takes the hassle out of taking spring compressors. But it can still be a difficult repair, depending on vehicle. In my experience for example 90series Prado were easy and 200series Landcruiser very difficult. Have no idea about Triton.
I have had friends who have had to repair broken aftermarket torsion bars or struts on the Canning. Not much fun.

Triton Man,

Out of interest, I have Lovell's suspension and shocks on the vehicle installed at the time I purchased the vehicle new as part of a GVM upgrade. The vehicle has now done 80,000 klm, plenty of it on corrugated roads and off-track in desert regions.

The shocks are going strong and as a matter of course I have replaced bushes.

I use Koni's on my TVAN camper trailer and they haven't given any trouble either.

Good luck with your preparation and trip...

Cheers, Baz - The landy

I think one of the messages here is ..... if you are planning long remote travel select you vehicle carefully ......... some vehicles are relatively easy to repair on the side of the road others are near impossible

cheers

Hi

For a good read on the CSR.

It goes to show the best plans can go wrong.

[url=http://sharkcaver.blogspot.com.au/]

Regards
Rowdy

Triton man

I think you are worrying a bit too much. The reliability of shocks depends a lot on the driver. If you pound the living daylights out of the car at high speeds over rough roads then you are well on the way to breaking or overheating them. If you take it easy then you should not have any trouble.

Over the last forty nine years I have driven over thousands of ks of Outback roads/tracks using the car manufacturer's standard shocks and have never had a problem. I have also never carried a spare. Those roads have included good ones like the Birdsville Track, the Great Central Road and four trips over the Nullarbor when there was still around 500ks of unsealed road in SA. The not so good ones have included many of the Beadell Roads.

Most of that driving has been in a EH Holden, a 504 Peugeot and a Hilux 4x4.

Shocks have not been designed to fail. Keep the car within its design limits and never push it along trying to keep to a time schedule on those roads and you should be fine.

I havn't read all the replies, so I might be repeating other people, simply put , check shocker temp, hot, rest and slow down, warm, keep going. If you cannot hold your finger on them for more than a few seconds, too hot. If you can hold fingers on them easily, all good.

I carry a full set of spare shocks on any remote trip.
Its not just about overheating but also mechanical failures - in fact any type of failure.

Example-Bilstein shocks are known to fall apart with the top locating threaded part unscrewing itself and disconnecting the shock from the car.
Had this happen to 3 of mine so far and is a very common problem.

Consider this- Driving the Bloomfield track heading down a very steep dirt section with a cliff face drop on one side and a nice sharp blind corner ahead. Truck is fully loaded and very heavy.
Shock lets go and starts rattling around the wheel arch. Brakes are applied but due to the non controlled front wheel bouncing about, the ABS decides that wheel is sliding so lets go the brakes and we vear off for the cliff drop at the corner.
Didn't fall off the cliff and very happy that I had spare shocks to sort it out before tackling Cape York.

People who have not had a catastrophic failure often do not see the need for carrying any spares.

People expect too much of their suspension.

If you go for a system that will provide a compliant long-travel ride while rock crawling you can't expect it to perform well on long stretches of corro or twisting mountain blacktop. In the former it packs, in the latter it rolls.

Coping with varying load is the biggest problem. The more load the more the sag - robbing you of compliance and damping performance. Or you go for stiffer springs and live with the harsh ride when unloaded. We are now seeing some coilovers come with adjustable spring preload so if you're keen you can crawl under with a C spanner and try to adjust the sag.

We're also seeing some shocks with a remote reservoir and that helps keep the oil temperature down and extend the service life.

As others have said..how you drive will determine what you have to repair/ replace.
We put on new shockers before we left for the Madigan last year..but took 1 front and one back of the older ones with us..they were still in good condition.
keep the wheels on the ground when driving over the rough/ lumpy stuff (crab holes) and you'll be fine.
Cable ties, grey tape, winch straps, tie wire and good rope can get you out of a minor jam.
Any parts that are "trip stoppers" such as radiator hoses, belts etc, car specific bolts (metric/ imperial)..some essential car fluids..
Carry an Epirb and Sat phone...had an experience recently where my appendix decided it wanted out..fortunately we were not far from Alice Springs. A day before we were remote and out of phone range...We probably would have delayed calling/ setting off our distress beacon..until we were absolutely sure it was all bad!...it would have been a helicopter retrieval at the least...and potentially fatal...
Lets face it..really..there are people everywhere now, so help is usually not too far away!
According to our friends who did the entire Canning a couple of years ago...idiots/ people are your worst problem..they also took time to level out some badly chopped up sections of the dunes, before they attempted to head up. They were towing a TVan with a Nissan ute(canopy)...no problems..took it slow....The Canning is as busy as your main street at home apparently!