Amada vs Cal off-road/Bilsten

[Whitey Shockie Maker of the Month Award Find all posts View Profile Close Whitey]

Hey again,

It's not possible to make any deductions about the closed-open lengths from an assembled strut.

You definitely need to take the coil spring out, and measure bottom of first washer to center of bottom bush ring eye.

You can pull apart the strut without the need for spring compressors, see here for a step by step guide;

http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...ade-for-Grande

Regarding the diff drop, this will improve the angle of your CV's at ride height. A diff drop will not stop your CV's binding at full droop on a long open length strut.

While you have your suspension apart on the front end, I would measure the CV binding length.

Make sure both sides are jacked with wheels at full droop. Take your wheel off one side, pull the strut out, then put the hub and ball joint back together without the strut on one side.

I normally blue tac a washer in place on the strut cap bush, and then measure from washer to center of bottom strut bolt hole.

Grab a bottle jack and put the base on the wheel guard, and push down on the upper control arm until you can't feel the rotor turn, or you can see the CV boot bind up. I generally go in stages on the jack, and I know I'm getting close to the CV binding when I can feel a fair bit of resistance when I try to turn the rotor. Make sure the wheel on the other side is off the ground when you do this.

It would be very useful to know at what strut length the 150 series CV binds at, as I haven't seen the figure and nobody has provided an answer yet.

I'm guessing you'll see the CV binding well before 595mm open length.

Keep us posted, measure everything, and you'll find a solution!

Best

Mark

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

A Little update. Have taken the struts out this morning so that I can send them back so that they can sort it out and get something back that will work for me...

Interestingly I have found a few pointers that would suggest the the Strut \ Spring Combo they setup is far from ideal

Firstly on the on strut - the force of the spring is that strong that it is causing the rubber plate\bush between the tophat and spring to bulge\come out on one side - see right side of first pic.
On the other strut the spring is actully arcing\bowing out to one side - see bottom pic it is bulging out to the left.

Clearly spring to hard, Spring to Long and Strut to short - or a combo of all these things causing the issues.

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

OK - Expecting some new springs to arrive tomorrow

The dude at Cal is still adamant that there are only shorter or taller springs not softer or harder.... Didnt even bother trying to argue

Anyway he is going to send me 40mm shorter spring that tbh i think is going to drop the car to much but lets see.

Apparently he did lots of research on this one this time round and he says that my Prado is probably some kind of freak Prado that is extra light in the front for some reason hence why it is sittng so high.

Anyway - I guess we'll see how I go tomorrow when they go back on - for now while I it the front up on the Stands again I have been playing with and teaching myself how the front end alignment works.
Intersting thing I have found is that you can fine tune the wheel forward and back in the wheel well which is very handy if you have a bit of scrubbing going on

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

OH Yes - one other thing we spoke about was the open length of the struts - acording to him they only do one open length of 555 and even after I mentioned that I have seen on a forum that there are three different open length shocks from them, he said that is no so....
Very interesting indeed.

Anyone want to buy a 3" CalOffroad Lift kit??

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Anyone want to buy a 3" CalOffroad Lift kit??

Yeah, I'll give you 50 bucks, you pay the freight

Cheers Andrew

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

Hahaha. Thought that might be the case

[rorza Member Find all posts View Profile Close rorza]

Wow, I knew COR had a history of bullshittery, but I didn't realise it was this bad. Sounds like they don't know what is going on over there!

Hopefully it gets sorted for you zero cos that situation is just a royal pain in the arse.

[Mattfunk 120 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mattfunk 120]

A lot of the good brands will have lots of good stories and happy customers but when there is a dud, often it is the follow up customer service that turns people away from these brands in the future. Hopefully you can sort this out cause when you pay top dollar you don't expect dramas. A mate of mine is rubbing it in that he paid around $1200 for an EFS lift straight from the factory and has had no dramas ( installed) after I've had dramas after paying top dollar for OME . Hindsight is a b$tch

[AussieAndy Find all posts View Profile Close AussieAndy]

That it is Matt, starting to get the run around feeling from Cal myself, but hope I'm proven wrong. Cal has asked every question about how I fitted it, asked me several times if I actually have the bar work fitted, and has now requested photos of the vehicle and suspension fitted. Hopefully he is just being thorough, not being difficult.

[Whitey Shockie Maker of the Month Award Find all posts View Profile Close Whitey]

OH Yes - one other thing we spoke about was the open length of the struts - acording to him they only do one open length of 555 and even after I mentioned that I have seen on a forum that there are three different open length shocks from them, he said that is no so....
Very interesting indeed.

Hey all,

It was me who found out the lengths of the struts available from CalOffroad.

I can assure you all that it took a lot of badgering to get the closed-open lengths for the 3 different struts available. It wasn't Cal that I spoke with, it was Sean.

I discussed with Sean explicitly that a 555mm strut is useless on a Prado lifted over 1".

For whatever reason, apparently there is now only an open length of 555mm according to zero's recent conversations with CalOffroad.

That they sell a 3" lift kit with a 555mm strut is leaving me struggling to believe they could be that mechanically witless.

In any case, your problem of 20mm droop is clearly related to the short open length 555mm strut they provided.

Regarding your coils, keep in mind you cannot accept a 40mm lower free height coil, that is ludicrous, the leverage ratio of 1:2.2 on the IFS means your front end will drop a bucket load, with a linear coil in the order of 80mm would be lost on your ride height, but as they are using progressive front coils, I can't provide an accurate answer of how much your front end will drop. It will be a lot though!

Lastly, those struts have not been assembled properly. This is the result of using a spring compressor with the strut not sitting dead center.

Not looking good here, if you've been sold a 555mm open length strut for a 3" lift kit, I am staggered!

I think you need to pull a coil and carefully check the closed-open length before you send them back.

...and then I would be demanding a full refund if it's definitely 555mm.

Best

Mark

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

Hey all,

It was me who found out the lengths of the struts available from CalOffroad.

I can assure you all that it took a lot of badgering to get the closed-open lengths for the 3 different struts available. It wasn't Cal that I spoke with, it was Sean.

I discussed with Sean explicitly that a 555mm strut is useless on a Prado lifted over 1".

For whatever reason, apparently there is now only an open length of 555mm according to zero's recent conversations with CalOffroad.

That they sell a 3" lift kit with a 555mm strut is leaving me struggling to believe they could be that mechanically witless.

In any case, your problem of 20mm droop is clearly related to the short open length 555mm strut they provided.

Regarding your coils, keep in mind you cannot accept a 40mm lower free height coil, that is ludicrous, the leverage ratio of 1:2.2 on the IFS means your front end will drop a bucket load, with a linear coil in the order of 80mm would be lost on your ride height, but as they are using progressive front coils, I can't provide an accurate answer of how much your front end will drop. It will be a lot though!

Lastly, those struts have not been assembled properly. This is the result of using a spring compressor with the strut not sitting dead center.

Not looking good here, if you've been sold a 555mm open length strut for a 3" lift kit, I am staggered!

I think you need to pull a coil and carefully check the closed-open length before you send them back.

...and then I would be demanding a full refund if it's definitely 555mm.

Best

Mark

Yip coudnt agree with you more mate.... The guy I am dealing with is Sean and although funnily enough as of today he seems to be getting a little easier to deal with (probably because he is realising that I am starting to smoke him out) he is still spinning me a bunch of nonsence.

I am taking note of all you are saying and can 100% confirm that what he said is that he will be sending me a 40mm shorter free height spring.

My plan is to take the struts to a shop up the road in Hopper Crossing from me (Vic) and get them to do the spring swap for me - at the same time I will messure the differance in spring height while both off and also the Strut lengths.

So you rekon if it is 555 the we have a serious problem? I was basicaly thinking if it does come down a bit to far then I'll just put some 20mm or perhaps 30mm spacers above the struts to give the extra height needed???

[Guest Close Guest]

So you rekon if it is 555 the we have a serious problem? I was basicaly thinking if it does come down a bit to far then I'll just put some 20mm or perhaps 30mm spacers above the struts to give the extra height needed???

Strut spacers of that height are a no-no. You will need to space down the bump stops as well as this negates upward travel. Plus the spacers comes at a cost - all because a shop can't supply the right strut to do the job right in the first place. You would be better off with one of the Hilux struts marked in the Suspension Database.

[Whitey Shockie Maker of the Month Award Find all posts View Profile Close Whitey]

Hey,

1. As amts has stated, spacers are a big NO NO.

2. A 555mm open length strut on a 3" lift is an even bigger NO NO NO.

The strut will get repeatedly topped out with 20mm of droop and soon dead.

If your struts are 555mm, it's refund time.

Best

Mark

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

Guys - Thanks for all the comments\support\advise..

I am not banking on the replacement springs arriving today since I have yet to see anything from Cal either send when they said they sent them or arrive in anything under 2 days.
Working from home anyway hoping for some miracle.

Anyway since I have no car at the moment I have decided that I'll head up the road with backpack and Struts on my bike and get them taken apart so that I can take some messurements.

Standby

[Guest Close Guest]

Why don't you take the struts apart on the Prado? Have you seen this procedure? http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...ade-for-Grande