Trip Report/Failure

[ryan-in-oregon]

Update

Ok. The shock mount is solid Rather the spring mount as the shock mounts to the air spring. After much further inspection the whole assembly is dropping too low. There is evidence of the cv boot rubbing on the lower a-arm as well The problem appears to be in the strut itself however I can't inflate it anymore to find out how low it will go. I might try a patch on the bladder just for the purposes of testing the strut assembly. I also inspected the driver side and it is doing the same thing however it has only just kissed the spring housing. Here are some new pictures I took as of this morning.

This is just an overall pic, you can also see where the spring has rubbed against the frame at full droop. (It gets closer to the fram the closer to full extension you get)

This shows that the a-arm is rubbing on the housing of the spring

This shows that the lower a-arm does indeed rub against the cv boot

Just another shot of the hole in the spring itself due to the a-arm rubbing

 

[Houm_WA]

Now that I see this angle of the hole I believe you are right; it was probably caused by the Control arm. I wonder how the heck that happened. I did get a tear in my CV Boot not long ago. I wonder if it was a related issue. ...it was on the inboard side though so probably not.

 

[Houm_WA]

Ryan, what condition are your bushings in? Could there have been a bad bush in that control arm causing an inordinate amount of play?

 

[ryan-in-oregon]

The bushings were replaced 6k miles ago and they still fill firm enough. (They weren't firm to begin with) Polys will be going in on the next go around for sure. I'm going to try and talk to one more tech this week sometime but the more I look at it I think it is just the strut itself over extending.

 

[Houm_WA]

Well I hope the best for ya. I hope you get it all solved and the LR3 all buttoned up and ready to go as soon as possible.

I'm done wheelin' for a while (baby coming and then college football season) but when things settle down I look forward to hitting more trails.

 

[ryan-in-oregon]

I have no trips planned in the immediate future so I can take my time on this repair. Here is a link to the thread I started over on disco3.co.uk http://www.disco3.co.uk/forum/topic52963.html

 

[Houm_WA]

Can anyone really explain what the rod-mod would have to do with this?

By the time the wheel is at full droop (basically off the ground or about to be off the ground) aren't the air shocks completely extended regardless of whether they started in Normal, Off-Road, or Extended Heights?

The Rod-Mod adjusts your starting height, but you are still limited by the pre-programmed allowable range of the height sensors, right? ....and the total vertical travel (roughly 10") of the suspension.

I get the strut being (potentially) out of range and allowing too much travel, but I don't see how the rod-mod has any influence.

????

 

[ryan-in-oregon]

Yes but the lower limit is not determined by the sensors. It is purely just the weight of the assembly hanging in freeair plus the force generated by the airpressure in the spring. So in theory this should have never happened as the strut should have reached full extension before the point of contact.

 

[Mr.BigsLR3]

Ryan, what condition are your bushings in? Could there have been a bad bush in that control arm causing an inordinate amount of play?

I was thinking the same thing. Worn bushings, combined with a hard jolt would result in damage like that.

 

[Houm_WA]

..It is purely just the weight of the assembly hanging in freeair plus the force generated by the airpressure in the spring.

Okay, so again how does the rod-mod contribute to this? The spring force would be: F=K*(delta)X. If anything, the spring force would be less if you have the rod-mod installed because that displacement (delta X) is lessened by ~2" but this is how a mechanical spring would work...so maybe like a coil spring. I don't know about air springs.

I think this isn't rod-mod related, that's all. I think you're on to something with the strut, but how did that happen? Is there any adjustment ability to it? Could it have somehow gotten out of whack?