Broken Shock Shaft - Causes?

[Herbie]

Making a little more progress. Fitted the bump-stop risers I made a few years ago. These are 3" square tubing chunks I pulled from my local metal yard's pennies-bin. They're drilled for mounting bolts and clearance for the alignment tab on the bumpstop, and with a pin press-fit into the axle-side to match up with the original alignment hole.

I remember now that the reason I didn't fit them at the time was that the rear suspension had already sagged some, so I would have been basically right on the tip of the bump all the time. That SHOULD have been a wake-up call, but I'm dumb.







They already sit a bit closer than I would have guessed (since it's only a 3" riser block and supposedly a 4"+ lift), but I'll get everything else squared away and then figure out if I can/should fab a 2" spacer instead... I chose this arrangement because the OEM bumpstops are pretty progressive (I'd have to put a camera on a stock Astro to be sure, but I think, by design, the vans "normally" contact these with higher frequency than a traditional hard bumpstop).

[MountainManJoe]

These are the front bump stops on my Savana van at normal ride height. They touch.

[MountainManJoe]

And here is the rear.





(and yes I've replaced the leaky shocks with KYB's. All good now)

[Herbie]

Cool, yeah - that's kind of what I suspected. So I'll leave the 3" risers in there for the time being. I spent the rest of the weekend on another project as I'm up against a gift-giving deadline, but I expect sometime over memorial day weekend I'll have time to nut-and-bolt the rear and start getting serious about choosing shocks.

As much as I think I understand the theory behind picking such things, I'm thinking I'll take advantage of Fox Shocks being located in my home town and pay them a visit...

[Herbie]

Here's a weird follow up: Anyone ever have trouble with the exhaust fouling on the rear leaf spring?

I had that issue when I lifted my Astro (new HD leaf spring pack from Overland). It was shaking the whole van when stopped at red lights.

I stopped at a Midas shop on my way from work and pointed it out. The manager there flew my van up the lift, put a torch on the bend in the tailpipe , grabbed the end with his hand and pulled it down until it no longer touched. Had me out the door in about 10 minutes. Didn't charge me a dime.

Either your local Midas is in Poway, CA, or it's company policy! My local Midas just did the same basic deal. They started with trying to bend it cold, and after every dude in the shop had taken a turn with the prybar, out came the acetylene rig. Total time, including all the gawking, was <20 minutes and they'd only take coffee money as a tip.




It didn't take much. They bent it back and down a bit, and now it clears. You can see where it was rubbing on the rebound clamp:

[MountainManJoe]

Awesome! Looks like a good bunch of smiling guys.
I think they just like working on our sweet custom rigs.