Hey Folks

I just completed this new write-up. It basically describes in detail what is involved with rebuilding a Sway-A-Way RaceRunner coilover (new seals and oil). If you have always been curious what makes them tick...

http://www.bajataco.com/sawrebuild1.html

 

Im trying to decide if racerunners are the way to go for me, I m not sure I want to be rebuilding every 25,000 mi what kind of duty have these shocks been seeing? thanks for the great info!!!

 

They have seen quite alot of off-road use (you can look at trip reports on my web site to get an idea...)

My two cents:

I think that shocks and springs are pretty much like tires or anything else on your vehicle that gets a lot of abuse, friction, wear, and stress. So maintenance for something like this doesn't bother me at all. I don't think you can run any shock for 25,000 miles with off-road use and expect that the oil in it won't be cooked. Especially if you have less oil volume. Not to mention - what are the seals and piston like? You'll never know because you can't see them. The springs on our vehicles (leaf springs and coil springs or torsion bars) do the majority of the work of supporting the weight of the vehicle and providing "suspension". The shocks are just dampeners that are there to help control compression and rebound. Thus, it can be hard to tell if a shock is performing at or near it's full potential. I would rather have something that will perform better under severe duty, and be able to take it apart and examine the guts and freshen it up, than to keep replacing "throw away" shocks that are not rebuildable and that I have to try and discern if they are working to their full potential or not.

My advice is to take a ride on an off-road trail in a rig equipped with the SAW's or comparable units. Better yet, if you have a friend who trusts you, drive a SAW equipped rig. You'll be able to tell the difference. That difference is worth it all to me.

Yea, I can buy coilover setups for much less $$ and just replace them with brand new units (after the first pair wears out) for a comparable cost to the SAWs. But what about the 3rd time around? And what about the every-day performance along the way? I will probably be replacing my SAW coils very soon with the new 15" coils too. More $$ yes, but like I said, it is worth it to me and suits my needs. By the time my rig croaks, I think the money I spent on the SAWs or similar units will be comparable to what I would spend on "throw aways" and I will have gotten much more performance out of them.

JMO though - take it with a grain of salt

 

Nice, well done.

Just fyi: your image href is a page error. It links to:

http://www.bajataco.com/sawrebuild/sawrebuild.html

 

Thanks HBoss!

What image href? I'm not sure where you are talking about...

 

Sorry..was talking in HTML code.

Basically, when I click on the SAW image instead of the words "on to the rebuild", it brings me to a missing page. It's a dead link.

 

thanks pal. You just said "image href" and I have alot of those on my write-up so I wasn't sure where you were talking about. Thanks again, I'm gonna go fix it right now...

 

Hehe, I know, sorry. I tend to rattle of whatever code/thoughts come to mind sometimes instead of clear English.

 

Very cool and informative write-up Chris.

This is also linked now in our Tech section under Maintenance.

 

Thanks guys

 

Awesome Write-Up! Even though I don't own the SAW's, I may someday. Thanks for the information. That's one of the best write-ups I have ever seen. Very Professional.

Dr. Z

 

Thank you sir

BTW folks - the write-up has been updated. Someone noticed that I neglected to mention that you have to de-pressurize the nitrogen before taking the shock apart :pat: so this step has been added to page 2, in the text next to the first photo.

And, I also got some info regarding the lower seal that I did not replace as part of my own personal rebuild. I added the info on how to do it on page 7 of the write-up.