My '78 is getting a set of #7100 Bilsteins

[Patrick Morris]

Wow, nice pics. Very thorough.

I see you don't have the factory skid plate around your tank. If I'd gotten shocks with reservoirs I would consider mounting them one over the other on the forward surface of the skid plate. It'd be a nice solid, out of harms way location. Without that option though, I don't know. Maybe build a bracket that hangs down from the x-member?

 

[chico]

Thanks! I just kinda threw them on. I wanna run tubing of some kind up near the tub but thats in time. My Scout aint equiped to off road yet so I got time. The p.o changed the rear gear ratio and never the front so I need to fix that first. Ive been lookin for a frame cause the p.o againg fuged it all up and bent it up front. Rat turd welds on the spring mounts stuff like that. Then shock hoops for the front. Scooter is gonna help me with that tho...wink,wink.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

thanks! I just kinda threw them on. I wanna run tubing of some kind up near the tub but thats in time. My Scout aint equiped to off road yet so I got time. The p.o changed the rear gear ratio and never the front so I need to fix that first. Ive been lookin for a frame cause the p.o againg fuged it all up and bent it up front. Rat turd welds on the spring mounts stuff like that. Then shock hoops for the front. Scooter is gonna help me with that tho...wink,wink.

We have good frames available and ready to go if interested.

I personally have been running a set of 7100's for some time now on the rear of my white Scout and couldn't agree more about not only the quality of the shock but the quality of the ride as well. For those figuring out how to mount the reservoirs I have the left reservoir mounted to the right shock and the right reservoir mounted to the left shock. If you look close enough you can see how the hoses crossed each other. Sorry about the quality of the picture that I attached as it was the best that I could find.

On a side note I know it was mentioned earlier in this thread about whether we sell these as it is frowned upon to link products we carry to other sites. I'm somewhat ok with this on the 7100's since we don't stock them but as a Bilstein dealer we can order these in for you as well.

 

[chico]

Thanks for clearing that up for us Jeff. I know how you like to keep everything in house and honestly I didn't even think about you ordering them or price shopping these shocks as well. Kinda got excited!
On your 7100's are you running the same height? 8 in the rear, 10 up front? I know your Scout is sprung over and ours isn't. I'm just thinking when and if I do my spring over if another set of shocks is in my future.
Also ill give you a call on the frame situation.

 

[ihpartsjeff]

I'm using 10" travel in the rear and 14" in the front. From my research at the time these short body shocks were the longest travel shock that I could find with the shortest overall length.

 

[Patrick Morris]

Hi Jeff. I appreciate your understanding. I wouldn't mention outside pricing or purchasing of stuff in this forum of things you carry. It'd just be bad form.

Chico: I was thinking, even if you do go spring-over some day, as long as your travel doesn't increase (and it May not), you could keep these shocks. Just move up the lower mounting points by 5" or whatever ends up being the difference. Easy to do with a welder and some spare steel.

Btw, I've been doing some research of the 7100 shocks, mostly over on pirate. The guys in the desert racing subforum seem to be the most into this technology. Turns out that the 7100s aren't actually "digressive", despite Bilstein's hype about how great it is and how we all need it. 7100s are actually linear-valved, since that's what works best for medium and high speed off-road driving. In fact, among their higher end competition shocks, only the 9100s have an option to use digressive pistons (that's where digressive/linear is determined; by the type of piston.) digressive is well suited to purely rock-crawling, so they say.

I guess how the digressive pistons work is that they have some kind of upwardly curved surface, and that surface effectively pre-loads the low-speed damping shims/plates (the biggest ones next to the piston). So what Bilstein (and others) are doing is using a shim stack that'd make the damping otherwise kind of "soft", and then pre-loading the low-speed damping to make low-speed shaft travel artificially firm. There's nothing really magical about digressive damping. At least this is what I've gotten from my readings.

But the bottom line is, who cares what kind of piston/valving the 7100s have. They work bitchin.

I want to play with the rear damping though. I think it could use a little more rebound control. I'm putting together a nitrogen refilling setup. Have the tank, regulator, and no-air-loss chuck already. All I need now is a hose. I've read that the best type to use is hydraulic hose since it's well made and rated to absurdly high pressures. I just need to find one that's about 6' long with 1/8" npt females on both ends.

 

[FDChappie]

A refrigeration hose will work well for you. They are rated to 4k psi and are screw on 1/4" flare threads. With a couple of 1/4 flare to 1/8" npt brass fitting you're in business.

 

[chico]

This is how she looks today.

 

[chico]

You can see how the front passenger side frame is slightly pushed back and the p.o added rock gaurds into the body on both sides. (welded) haha

 

[Patrick Morris]

Chico: wow you have a lot more lift and bigger tires than my Scout does. I kind of thought so from your earlier pics. There is a lot more shaft showing on your rear shocks than mine. Make sure they won't "top out" too easily.

That Scout should make a really nice trail rig when it's along a little further. Looks cool now though.

Also...

a refrigeration hose will work well for you. They are rated to 4k psi and are screw on 1/4" flare threads. With a couple of 1/4 flare to 1/8" npt brass fitting you're in business.

Thanks. Is that the same as an "hvac" hose? I've read of people using those too.

And is it something you can find at home depot? (the adapters I can find lots in of places.)

 

[chico]

You think so? It's only a 3 inch lift on 33. I haven't fully cycled the rear yet. And they are connected to the stock spring plate. I guess we will see. Might be using the 10 in the rear. Lol

 

[Patrick Morris]

Gotta be more than that, I'd think. My friend's Scout has (I believe) 4" rancho springs using 5" l shackles with his 33's. And he doesn't have that much clearance at the wheel wells. Either that or it might just be and odd viewing angle. And/or the shadows making the gaps look bigger.

Just for fun, you might want to measure the distance from axle tube to the frame rails at the front and rear, and post the dimensions here.

edit: Chico, I looked at your earlier pics again. Your rear shocks might not be as extended as I first thought. I think it's partly just the perspective and angle of the lens in those pics, plus your stock spring plates have the shocks dropped a little more than do my spring plates by about 1.5".

Nice thing is, if you ever decide that the mounting points have the shocks too extended, it's easy to fabricate and weld some new ones a little higher. Having them higher up and more out of harm's way isn't bad. Better than if it was the other way around---lowering them would suck.

 

[chico]

So last night I measured from axle tube to frame and in the front I got 11.5 inches and the rear 10 inches.

 

[Patrick Morris]

Wow, that's a lot more lift that I have. I measure mine at 9.25" for the front and 7.75" for the rear.

I've got the Skyjacker 2" or 2.5" lift kit (whatever they call it). Mods to this are: front springs have iho's 5" long shackles; the rear springs have Skyjacker's 'helper leafs' to boost the rate and lift a little.

So I figure I netted at least 3" lift over my old stock springs. Maybe a tad more than that. Here is how the truck sits. Tires are 31" generals.

 

[chico]

Looks good! Maybe Jeff can give us a lil more in sight on stock height and his measurements now withe the shocks he is using. But I'm pretty sure ill be switching these out lol.

 

[Patrick Morris]

Well I don't remember if you bought the same ones I have exactly. But you are probably fine with just getting some aftermarket spring/Ubolt mounts and maybe adding higher mounts to those. Seems unnecessary to swap out 8" shocks (rear) for 10-12" travel shocks just because they're longer when fully extended. 8.25" (the actual travel) is not a piddly amount of movement.

But of course what you should really do it take it out somewhere, remove the existing shocks, and getting crossed up, like what I did. And take some careful measurements. Then you will know for sure what what dimensions you're working with.

 

[chico]

Did you ever exchange the rear shock since the pressure was lower?

 

[Patrick Morris]

No. Is that what I said? Lower pressure? Been so long I forgot. Doesn't matter anyway. The pressure is adjustable and I have an n2 setup. I try to keep them all at 200-220 psi.

I might have been saying that I didn't care for the "255/70" damping on the rears. I'm going to be trying something different there shortly. It's actually not bad if the rig is full of camping gear and extra fuel and water, but I want to try increasing the rebound and decreasing the compression slightly. Again, just on the rear for now. I bought some damping shims from a local shop and I'll be pulling the rear shocks apart soon. Doesn't seem like rocket science performing the swap. I saw a video where a guy changed the shim stacks on one 7100 in about 18 minutes. I don't plan on trying to beat that record though. First time through I'll go nice and slow, and careful.

One other update since I last wrote here is that I positioned my rear shocks to optimize the travel. Wasn't a hard thing to do.

Edit: one other update. I had a blowout with one of my old general tires (31") in October so on a bit of an impulse (and got a good online deal) I upgraded to a set of 32" coopers. See pic. I May need to do a little trimming of the front corners, like what's been done on your Scout.

Regards.

 

[chico]

Those tires look great on their! You have any pictures of the rear?

 

[Patrick Morris]

Thanks. I discovered that I May need to do some trimming at the front, for when it gets crossed up. Wasn't expecting that with just 32s, but oh well.

On the shock mount pics, sure. See attached. Since the original config was just a little short for these shocks, I put in new upper mounts to gain some length. The upper mounts, even moved outward as far as they'd fit, actually made the for slightly too much stretch. So I split the difference by changing the lower mounts. Simplest solution (and best, imo) was to weld on some 2" long .5" id heavy tubing to the spring plates. They make for a very solid mount. And as I've said, very simple in design. Didn't even have to remove anything to get them on there. Then I just needed to buy some longer bolts.

The beauty of this lower setup is, if I ever change ride height or shock type, I can always weld another tube above/below the existing one to make adjustments.

another update.: The other day I pulled the rear shocks apart and did a little revalving on the compression side. That's why the nut is lose in the pics. I decided to snap them midway through my removal.

I changed out the "70" shims for Bilstein's "60" profile shim set. The result seems very favorable so far. I won't know for sure though until the truck's loaded up with gas, water, and gear, and bopping around on a desert trail. I hope for that to be very soon.

 

[chico]

Right on! Lookin good. I didnt notice the front corner rolled like that until you said something. Thinking about taking it higher and cutting off the sheet metal below the front turn signal and wrap it around for more clearance. Those tires are 33' s. I also switched out the the 8 inch shock for the 12 inch because when I cycled the suspension not much drop. Even moving the mounts. So now I have the 12's in the back and gonna order 14's for the front. And sell these 8's. And also did what Jeff did and attached the resevoirs opposite of each other. I should have those 14's by the time I drive down to scooters and pick up his shock hoop frame. When I do ill post the pics how it looks. I need to start my own readers ride thread ive done so much and have all the pics just to lazy hahaha.

 

[Patrick Morris]

Adding new info/update to this thread. Changed my damping a little, finally, and so far I'm pretty happy. To summarize, the "255/70" damping worked okay in the front. But I didn't like that setting for the rear. Despite the rear shocks being angled over, I think the compression was still too stiff back there.

The image below, the red box shows the damping plates that came in all of the shocks.

note: I made one correction to the chart. For some reason, all my shocks came with 0.10mm thick rebound bypass plates, not the specified 0.15mm plates. These plates are actually pretty critical to the behavior. Thicker bypass plates soften the shock's overall damping, thinner or no bypass shims can make the shock much firmer overall. (note that the stiffest settings in this chart don't use bypass shims.)

for the rear shocks, I wanted to soften the compression a bit. Not knowing exactly where to start, I just bought a set of the "60" compression shims. Doing that made the rear end ride like a cadillac. But when loaded with gear it was a little mushy. So, cut to the chase, this is what I've done:

rebound stack: stiffened it up a bit by replacing plates #3 and #4 with 0.50mm thick versions (up from 0.45mm).

compression stack: stiffened it just a tad from the basic "60" setting by going to a slightly thinner (0.15mm) bypass plates.

By this time I was getting pretty good at pulling the shocks apart. So I decided to soften the front shocks' compression too, but only slightly. I did so by swapping the bypass plates with thicker (0.15mm) plates. Now it seems to ride really nicely and handle rough terrain with even more grace. I'll report back once I take it out to the desert again.

 

[chico]

Sweet!

 

[kiks1272]

I ve also had a bite of a issue with my shock set up

http://forums.IHPartsAmerica.com/suspension-tech/11211-missing-shocks.html

 

[Julian537]

One tech tip. The Ford shock towers have holes that are less than 1/2" I.d. Do yourself a favor and drill them to 1/2" diameter before welding or installing. It was a pain to drill mine, after they were installed.