Shocks To shave or not to shave?

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KISSMYAURA

KISSMYAURA

Well-Known Member
Posts
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Location
KENT
Any one shaved thier cups on the rear Shockmount to fit OME?
I was chatting with Gwyn today ( Gwyn Lewis 4x4) cos i just bought x 2 OME rear shocks from him, that was his advice.
Which i am inclined to go with however as my set is standard height and not much articulation required wondered if anyone else has done it?
Screenshot 2023-06-20 at 20.33.04.jpg
 
KISSMYAURA said:
Any one shaved thier cups on the rear Shockmount to fit OME?
I was chatting with Gwyn today ( Gwyn Lewis 4x4) cos i just bought x 2 OME rear shocks from him, that was his advice.
Which i am inclined to go with however as my set is standard height and not much articulation required wondered if anyone else has done it?
View attachment 291038
Click to expand...

Loons @KISSMYAURA , so we've both spoken with Gwyn today. Me re' new nuts for the HD ball joints. Std LR is M12 thread but Gwyn's are 1/2" UNF full nuts. Who'd have thought...
 
KISSMYAURA said:
love that he answers the phone!

HD ball joints on the sumo's lemforders?
Click to expand...

Yarp.

We spoke for 20mins on completely non-LR unrelated subjects, chewing the cud on how classic/sports car parts used to be ordered from the back of Autosport magazine, order confirmed by fax, cheque taking a week to clear and the items turning up 21days later! Plus tales of the great Exchange & Mart known affectionately as "The Expand & Fart" for those of us old enough to remember this ;)
 
I still have an electric drill that was bought out of an advert in Expand and Fart in 1984. It's still going too - after nearly 40 years. That was the main way to obtain power tools at reasonable prices in those days, with listings in tiny print and an address to which a cheque/PO could be posted. Of course, very often time went by and you got a letter back saying the requested item was out of stock, but on ths occasion we hit paydirt and got a 600 watt 2 speed drill. Having only had access to those pistol grip Black and Deckers before, this was a revelation.
 
v8250 said:
@miktdish , I keep reading stories of how poor the Terrafirma shocks are. I have the standard Terrafirma units on mine and have had zero problems [yet]. How many miles had you covered before the thread snapped?
Click to expand...

Around 2000 ... 5 months (ish)
www.landyzone.co.uk

Shocking, rear shock, shock

Went out this morning to find a dangler. I was shocked ...
www.landyzone.co.uk www.landyzone.co.uk
 
miktdish said:
Around 2000 ... 5 months (ish)
www.landyzone.co.uk

Shocking, rear shock, shock

Went out this morning to find a dangler. I was shocked ...
www.landyzone.co.uk www.landyzone.co.uk
Click to expand...
Terrafookwits aka Allmakes, budget cheap crap with a fancy logo, same as bearmach total garbage LR workshop has done some interesting articles on who akes this stuff behind the scenes, Its the same deal with Bosch just a front for cheap repro stuff.
I stick to gates, SKF, Dayco, Lemforder, Litens (EU only), OME, Mahle, Mann, In other words pople that actually manufacture stuff and not buy cheapo repro's form china and dust them over with thier logo etc lesson learnt
 
Last edited:
miktdish said:
Around 2000 ... 5 months (ish)
www.landyzone.co.uk

Shocking, rear shock, shock

Went out this morning to find a dangler. I was shocked ...
www.landyzone.co.uk www.landyzone.co.uk
Click to expand...

Jeepers! Have read your link and the similar experience of others. It doesn't build much confidence in Terrafirma. Looking at the point of break this is the natural high stress point in the lower mounting which indicates either poor design [not enough metal], poor metal quality and/or poor quality welding leading to early failure. If all the Terrafirma fails were from hard use one could expect early attrition, but not where a Land Rover is used for light duties and only on road.

The other note is that the failures always appear to be on the rear dampers. Logically, as this is where the axle has greater day-to-day articulation :. greater stress at the common failure point.

Looks like we all need to keep an eye on our rear dampers...
 
Looking again at the failure pic below we can see the design/build weak point. If we think of the damper arc of moment throughout all articulation and the transition between supported by rubber mounting loads and the non-supported loads, it's no wonder the Terrafirma's break and fail where they do.


1687336145969.png
 
2B fair I have removed the anti-roll bars and I have medium rated springs and a wide angle A-frame ball joint, so in effect I am encouraging axle articulation and then fitted (the supplied) stiff'ish poly-bushes.
All of that was sat in the original cups which (by design) will try to keep everthing linear/aligned.
It is the perfect storm ...

With the cups removed there is a much reduced imparted stress during axle articulation as the lower shaft can rotate as it passes through the 5mm steel lower suspension mount.
Ideally that should be a ball-joint, but to make one strong enough to support the back end of a bouncing, rolling, pitching Defender would take some serious (above my pay grade) engineering.

If you remove the anti-roll system, fit additional height or install poly-bushes, remove the cups because the design of the available rear shocks can't cope with the additional stress you will generate.

I won't encourage anyone to buy (not) Terriblyfirma shocks absorbers because of my experience and the fact that thier 'customer support' team (Steve Pickford - Eddie Priscot and Blaine Blackwell) blew me off.
Also anything that I have bought from Terribly/AllMakes (same company BTW) rusts in about 10 mins when underneath a Landrover.
Allparts are shown a picture of a tin of primer/undercoat and then given a millisecond to pass through a cloud of topcoat vapour.

Terribly, Terribly poor
 
I have driven Landy's for Fifty years now, with much off road use and the only fail I have had twice [ once on series once on coil ] is the eye coming off at the top of the shock. I just fit the standard Armstrong ones again when they wear out.
 
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