Stock Shocks=Link Lubers!

[crazyorigin]

well, i thought there was a lot of oil on my x-crawler when i pulled it out of the box. I cleaned it all off, and a few days later, it was oily again when i was monkeying with it. Cleaned it again, and the same situation repeated itself. I thought maybe the shocks are leaking, but "Nah, they look like they are good shocks" haha. So today, i had a link torn off and a shock with it for some mock-up blueprints and such for new links, made new bushings to replace the plastic ones between the links and chassis out of aluminum. had the shock torn down and opened the top cap, and "What the heal!, these things have no oil in them". They had very little oil residue inside of them, no wonder they didnt feel very good when cycling the suspension.

This was actualy a good thing, as i will be replacing the shocks anyways, and i had what seems like a sweet idea to me. I blueprinted and started programing for a part to hook 2 shocks together, w/ the stock XTM shock run w/ hardly any oil (because aparently they leak like faucet) working as a "Droop Shock" as i am calling it. I wanted to figure out a way when i first got it to have a lot of down travel, but not much up travel and i hope this will work out well. I will get pics posted up when it is finished, hopefully it will turn out nicely.

Anyone else had their X-Crawler's stock shocks work like Link Lubers? haha My 8 year old stock T-Maxx shocks that have been sitting for, well, their whole life basicaly are still holding all their oil:-P

[crazyorigin]

I got a lot done today on the Shock coupler today, i will post up pics when its all finished. I need to scrounge up some flat material for the chassis mods I want to do, but that shouldnt be too bad, these shocks are gonna be LONG, haha.

[crazyorigin]

here is what i came up with for my shocks so far. I still need to finalize the mounts. When i get my body i will run, i plan to make a cage for it that fits tight to the inside of the shell to prevent damage on a hard rollover, and will likely mount the tops to them. It is held in place up top now with a huge wire tie (baggie tie)

The shocks are Duratrax shocks, the guy at my local HS said they are for an Evader. These are the short ones, i plan to order some long ones before i get all of them, to see what i'de like better. May end up w/ a combo of short/long at each corner. This is gonna alow for a lot of adjustability, and i am anxious to get my links built, and try this out. Some stuff i need is on order, but the bulk of the electronics wont get ordered for a few weeks still.

I was oeiginaly pla ning to use the stock shocks as a "Droop Shock" only on the bottom, and was going to put the threaded eng of the shock into the shock coupler, bue decided to drop that idea as the stock shocks are realy quite crappy from what i can see. The shafts on them are very soft steel also. The stock shocks will not be mounted behind like in the pic, this was just so i could see what it will look like. I also made a bunch of little spacers and bushings for the chassis.

[2500hdon37s]

sweet new shocks!