drguitarum2005
02-01-2008, 06:25 PM
Copied from TTORA:
I posted a while ago about my http://www.ttora.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71111"]bouncy (http://"[url) rear end[/URL] and never really got around to doing anything about it. I finally decided to do something about it today and heres what happened:
I got under my truck to take my shocks out and found that one shocks (drivers side) no longer had a bushing in it at the bottom so it was sitting loose around the mounting bolt on the axle. That in itself isn't good, but the shock was also not in tension OR compression, it was just hangin there. I took the shock off and it kept its length, i could push it in or pull it out fairly easily and it'd stay how i left it. The passenger side one behaves the same way. I also found, after turning them upside down, that there is some fluid around where the inner "shaft" slides in and out of the shock. To me this means they are both blown, but my questions are:
(1) What should a normal shock act like? Should it stay where I put it or should it always try to extend itself fully?
(2) My shocks are mounted triangular ( /\ ) (see pic in previous post for angles) with what looks like about a 30* angle off the vertical. If I were to replace these shocks, should I replace them how they were or should I try to put them back to stock?
(3) The stock shock locations are NOT at verticals from the axle. The drivers side looks like it'd hold the shock at the same 30* or even WORSE if I put them back to stock, same with the pass. side. People say triangular loses damping power because of the angles...which I understand, but the stock angles aren't very good either...
(4) I'd need to flip my u-bolts back to stock in order to use the stock mounting locations...so thats a tradeoff. Is it worth it?
(5) The shocks I had were Rancho RS5012. What is a good shock to replace it with? Should I go stiffer or softer if I want the axle to stop dancing around? How good are adjustable shocks? I was considering the Rancho RS9000XL
(6) The Rancho RS5012 has a compressed eye-eye length of 19" and extended length of 32.5". That length works perfectly fine for my triangular setup but is that too long to be put back to stock on my 2000 Tacoma?
Thanks and hopefully I provided enough info.
By the way, I'm driving around with NO shocks right now and my truck acts EXACTLY the same way as it has for the almost 2 years I've owned it, thats a big tell to me that my shocks weren't doing anything.
I posted a while ago about my http://www.ttora.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71111"]bouncy (http://"[url) rear end[/URL] and never really got around to doing anything about it. I finally decided to do something about it today and heres what happened:
I got under my truck to take my shocks out and found that one shocks (drivers side) no longer had a bushing in it at the bottom so it was sitting loose around the mounting bolt on the axle. That in itself isn't good, but the shock was also not in tension OR compression, it was just hangin there. I took the shock off and it kept its length, i could push it in or pull it out fairly easily and it'd stay how i left it. The passenger side one behaves the same way. I also found, after turning them upside down, that there is some fluid around where the inner "shaft" slides in and out of the shock. To me this means they are both blown, but my questions are:
(1) What should a normal shock act like? Should it stay where I put it or should it always try to extend itself fully?
(2) My shocks are mounted triangular ( /\ ) (see pic in previous post for angles) with what looks like about a 30* angle off the vertical. If I were to replace these shocks, should I replace them how they were or should I try to put them back to stock?
(3) The stock shock locations are NOT at verticals from the axle. The drivers side looks like it'd hold the shock at the same 30* or even WORSE if I put them back to stock, same with the pass. side. People say triangular loses damping power because of the angles...which I understand, but the stock angles aren't very good either...
(4) I'd need to flip my u-bolts back to stock in order to use the stock mounting locations...so thats a tradeoff. Is it worth it?
(5) The shocks I had were Rancho RS5012. What is a good shock to replace it with? Should I go stiffer or softer if I want the axle to stop dancing around? How good are adjustable shocks? I was considering the Rancho RS9000XL
(6) The Rancho RS5012 has a compressed eye-eye length of 19" and extended length of 32.5". That length works perfectly fine for my triangular setup but is that too long to be put back to stock on my 2000 Tacoma?
Thanks and hopefully I provided enough info.
By the way, I'm driving around with NO shocks right now and my truck acts EXACTLY the same way as it has for the almost 2 years I've owned it, thats a big tell to me that my shocks weren't doing anything.