G'day Lads and Ladettes,
As some of you know if your in Australia, and some of you don't know, I have had a few issues with my OME rear coils over the past 2 and a bit years, most of which is the sag factor when you actually keep a load in the back for an extended period, couple that with the fact that when I had my lift done NO additional bumpstops were added, so overcompression was also a factor, when flexing the rear of the KJ, the coils would stack badly (IE - coil binding metal on metal) that also causes them to sag quite quickly. I had the first set of coils replaced within 3 months of the original lift, and then extra coil packers had to be used to keep the rear end up where it should be, that in itself was only a bandaid, as the coils packers only gave extra lift , but, did not address the fact that now I had less actual travel in the coils, so the rear would bottom out easily, and when I put a load of gear in the back would sag down to its original unlifted height.
Sooooooo, I spoke with CRDSTU (OzLtd here on LOST) about the problem and he went about specing up a set of Extra Heavy Duty Rear coils, that would address the sag, need for coil spacers ( to get the lift I wanted) and the ability to keep a reasonable load in the back all the time without sagging down. What he came up with is fantastic, they are a heavier duty coil wire that is specifically engineered to hold more weight, they are about 1/2 and inch higher that the OME Heavy duty coils ( phyically when out of the car standing together) and when we installed them the car sat up nicely in the rear. Generally, unladen, the rear of my KJ would sit at about 555 - 560mm (hub centre to guard), but when you put stuff in the back it would sag down to around 525 - 530, Bad for travelling and going camping. So I packed up the car with all the stuff I would normally carry (or like to carry) and measured it, 535mm. Then we installed the New Custom Coils Stu had made, 40mins later with exactly the same load in the car, 555mm was the measurement. GREAT. Remember the car was now sitting up 20mm higher with just the new coils, as apposed to sitting low with the old coils that required 30mm of extra help from the packers to sit 20mm lower than the new coils alone. Drove around with the load, ride was great , we were a little worried that it may be too stiff , but , that was not the case. But the big challange was to see what was going to happen when unloaded. Was the rear going to go far too high, that was the question, so I unloaded nearly everything from the rear, and even after running the fuel tank to almost empty the rear only jumped up to 565- 570mm, ride was still great, didn't bouce around, was not too stiff as I also replaced my old Pro-comp shockes with a new set of CRDSTUs custom longtravel rears. So all in all a great success.
Here's the new coils, beside the OME's
We drove the KJ up an embankment to flex it up to change the coils, we simply undid the lower shock mount to let the rear fall down as far as possible
Stu, removed the old coils and packers ( I had 3 x 10mm packes each side )
NO coils
New Coils - NO packers
Sitting Nicely
Beside Stu's CRD, mine full of gear, His, nothing in the back, and they sat at the same height.....Very happy
This is what I had in the back, and, still had 555mm of lift..and Yes those two jerry cans are full, and I had a full tank of fuel.
If anyone else has had the same issue with load, and sagging, just PM OzLtd (Stu), I'm sure he'll be able to see you right..:p
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