Bluto

The Daystar does 2" rear (extending the shock travel 2"). The relocs move the shock location about 2.5" (reducing travel by 2.5"). So under compression the extra 0.5" is the problem?

4run4fun

As I said to FirstToy, your comments/thoughts/opinions won't offend me. And I'm ok with us not agreeing too.

Two thoughts:
One - I think you are greatly overexagerating the safety potential here. We are talking about a rear shock mount, not a life or death suspension component. I have driven vehicles with broken shocks before and it is not a major safety concern. In fact, I had a 71 duster (yeah, I'm gettin old) in chicago and was driving in the snow when a pothole jumped out and ripped the front left torsion bar out of the frame! I still was able to drive home, albeit at a left sloping front angle! The point I am trying to make is that while I take safety seriously, I just don't see this component from NE posing any major problems.

Two - I don't believe the pressure exerted on this shock mount comes anywhere near to what it would have to be to cause breakage, under any circumstance. We're talking about a solid stainless rod with grade 8 hardware. The rear of this vehicle just doesn't carry the potential to break that, unless I try some dukes of hazzard stunt!

I achieved full compression of the rear on a number of instances on my Sibley Mansion trip without any problems at all. I posted one of these pics in another thread. There were spots much worse than these and I had a lot of weight in the vehicle for the most part. (unless someone was out takin pics or spottin!)





I don't have a problem with the quality of the Relocs. The design could be improved upon in my estimation, but it is functional and I have no real concerns about it. I am not "looking the other way", rather I have evaluated this part and based on my 30 years of working on cars I have concluded that it is suitable for the purpose. Hey, the manufacturer put sub par tires on the thing (Dunflops) right from the factory. I lost one of them on my first offroad trip. Certainly a greater potential for safety problems with poor quality tires. Did the manufacturer/dealer just look the other way? Nah!

Sometimes new ideas are born out of what seems obvious. That is what I thought when I first saw NE's design (the later design, not the first one). There have been many, many products that the big guys simply missed. BTW - Daystar in Phoenix gave me my lift for free! (Thanks to a member on this board and Dan at Daystar!) It was a test before bringing the product to market, so I guess It has not been fully tested either! I am the test! The test R us!

As I have already stated, I have no real concerns here. Anything can go wrong with anything! With the off roading that I do I have a much greater chance of breaking an axle, cv, cardigan joint, etc. So far the reloc has tested out fine for me. I am fine with continuing the test. If it breaks I will say you told me so!

My point exactly. If you look at my pic labeled "original mount" above you can see that the natural position of the shock comes much closer to the spot where the reloc goes than it does to the original mount once the vehicle has been lifted. I barely had to compress it to fit. This is much better than the stretch it made to fit the original mount in my view.

Here's lookin at you from the mining roads of AZ!

Good Times

This is what makes this forum a great place as we can discuss different perspectives
Those photos say otherwise... You look pretty darn young to me.
I don't think toyota had those tires in mind for offroading. they're definitely flops as I had the same sets too but I did manage to hang in there on the trails for abit.
Testing old technology on a new vehicle isn't that much of a concern (as the theory does not change and as long as they factor in the change in spec it's all good) but when you introduce new technology like in this case extensive r&d is required. That's my only concern.
I doubt you'll break an axle unless you're locked up front but the cv boots themselves have a greater chance. Upper a-arm ball joints will go as well as I blew out both mine due to the excessive angles from the trails. I hope it won't come down to the "I told you so" as I hate that the most!

One of these days, we can all get together and have a cold one on the trail FirstToy will provide the for us

Robinhood150

http://rockstomper.com/catalog/pieces/hinge.htm

The link above is for a tire carrier hinge which uses a trailer axle rated for 1000lbs. That's a 1.25" diameter piece of steel which is most likely not ordinary steel and certainly not stainless steel. There's a safety factor in there somewhere, probably around 3. That means it can probably hold at least 3000lbs without breaking.

Most tire carriers weigh less than 100lbs. It seems pretty strong, yet there are numerous cases in which people have had their tire carrier snap off after hitting a small bump. How can this happen? Most people attribute the failure to fatigue. If a cyclic force of sufficient magnitude is exerted on steel for enough cycles (100,000 - 1,000,000 - 10,000,000+) the steel will break. The magnitude of the force required to fail something in fatigue is surprisingly low.

Also, people have stated above, the grade 5 or 8 or 2 bolts don't do anything other than retain the shock. The bolts provide negligable structural support.

4run4fun

Young at heart anyway! My 27 year old son took the pics!

bulldog-yota

Nope, the bumpstop is still in same place, so you axle still goes up all the way it did before, so it is 2.5" difference that concerns me. I prefer not to have my shock become the bumpstop.

Good Times

Looks like 2 xreas system with the reloc has caused the system to fail. Both system are non functional now and requires complete replacement of the entire system ($$$). There is no confirmation on whether or not the reloc was the sole case but based on observation it does look like the reloc was the factor.

r0cky

Lance ... is mine one of the two you're referring to?

PM me or something and let me know if you think that's what it is. Unlike RL's, mine still feels like it has shocks, but it sways a lot from side to side and sounds horrible when going over a bump.

Seahawk1

Mine hasn't failed yet, but there is a high-pitched sound when going over bumps. Crap, I really don't need this. I am at work and don't have time to review all the posts, can I just move the bolt down to the original hole? Any other fixes so I don't ruin my X-REAS?

Good Times

removing the reloc would be highly recommended at the current moment.

good luck

r0cky

kris,

with 2.5" of lift you will be more than fine without the re-locs ... take them off as soon as you have the chance to do so. Daystar's lift is 2.5" in front and 2" in rear and they say it's fine with XREAS, and they don't include longer shocks or anything. so just take the re-locs off and put it back to the original mount asap.

Seahawk1

Rocky (or somebody else familiar with the product), can I use the bolt that was provided with the NE kit and put that back in the original bolt hole or do I need to use the original bolt, it is probably around somewhere, but not sure where.

Good Times

Use the factory bolt.

EDIT:
Because the threading might be different even the strength on those bolts might be crap. Better safe to go back to factory.

r0cky

I agree with Lance - use the factory bolt.

Seahawk1

Thanks guys. In case I can't find the original factory bolt, I called my dealership and they say it is part number 90119A0018 ($5.22). Not that I don't trust them but . . . any way to independently confirm the part number. Of course, it will take a week to get here . . .

r0cky

The smudge on the midpoint of the shock is where I wiped off some type of recently leaked fluid. the entire bottom half of the shock is covered in this from the last few months. The fluid I wiped off tonight was dark and oily/greasy.

4run4fun

After reading this and the other (NE) thread on the subject I am concerned. I am on the road at the moment, so I will take a look at my rears when I get back to AZ. I have not had any strange noises while driving it around town though, and I put 50-60 miles on per day. I also have done some significant wheeling which involved heavy compression and stretch with no apparent problems at that time.

While I am no mechanical engineer, it would not seem that the relocs could cause this kind of stress though. The reason I say this is because thier location was within a half of an inch of where the shock naturally rested. Would a shock have that tight of a travel tolerance?

Maybe the whole XREAS idea on a truck was not really a good one? It would seem to me that Toyota would have thouroughly tested this system in various conditions. In their early online video's etc. they indicated that this system was developed in an off road environment and that it was meant for the purpose. It's the main reason I bought the Sport edition, which is the model that they targeted toward the off roader.

I'll let you all know what I see as soon as I can.

bulldog-yota

The problem is that it is not an 1/2" difference but 2-3" difference. Just because you have a spacer in doesn't mean your axle can't still move up all the way. That is why suspensions have bumpstops to limit compression. The bumpstops were not modified to my knowledge which means the shocks has to deal with 2-3" of extra travel on compression. I have yet to see anybody with a Revtek or Daystar kit with issues on their XREAS or running stock.

THat is why I wanted to see where the bumpstop and axle sit at full compression now compared to stock. AT least with droop the swaybar takes a lot of the force of the actual shock extension. This help will obviously go away once you disconnect the swaybar, a reason why on more extreme suspension setups people use limiting straps.

But it is up to everybody to judge for themsleves, I just find in interesting that I now know of only 2 people who have had issues with their XREAS system and both were running NE relocs.

r0cky

bulldog,

i think perhaps it was a combination of the spacer lift in the rear and the re-locs.

4run4fun

The NE lift is higher, so that certainly has potential to contribute to the problem.

I have a Daystar lift, installed by them. I was the second 4th gen to have this lift and they did it for free as a final test before releasing the product to the world. While Daystar has a history of solid product and a lot of experience, no one has experience with lifting the XREAS equipped 4runners. Therefore, those of us who have lifted rigs with XREAS are the test group.

I would never defend NE as I have seen enough in the comments of others to judge them to be a fraudulent opperation. The quality of their spacers is clearly bad. Time will tell if this is true of the relocs. As I understand it these were made, not by AK, but by some local machine shop. The work 'looks' sound. However, as acknowledged, they have not been tested. Could the leakage be solely due to problems with the spacers rather than the relocs? I don't know if anyone can say, yet.

Now I can't wait to get home and take a look under the truck!