[CATS]

Ok

So I had the Old Man Emu's in there for about 110 000km and they have been worked hard with the ARB bar and winch up front and towing the Xplorer often over challenging and rutted terrain. The front shocks have been replaced some time ago with heavy duty ones, up from medium and they still seem fine, but the rear ones are shot and needs replacement. I have also measured the height and I am convinced that the coils font and rear have sagged back to close std Mitsu height. Thus I have started to look at replacement.

OME is horribly expensive on the Gen3 and although I am extremely happy with them I cannot justify the premium in these economic times. I have thus leaned to Ironman which currently come in at R8320 complete without fitment(OME currently is about R3000 more expensive!!!!). Unfortunately Ironman do not have stock currently in SA for the rear on a LWB currently so I am waiting.

I would also like to fit airbags at the rear to assist in load carrying but sadly the minister of finance have declined my application so it would need to wait a bit more.

I know Bennie is 'happy' with his IM, although he mentioned that it is noisy. Lowrange is happy with his.

Any other comments before I start throwing hard earned money at this problem.

CATS

[Family_Dog]

Cats,

Speak to Darrell at Mikem Suspension, you might be pleasantly surprised.


-F_D

[CATS]

Cats,

Speak to Darrell at Mikem Suspension, you might be pleasantly surprised.


-F_D

Phoned them 2 days ago and left my name and number and they promised to phone me back. No response yet so I have basically written them off

CATS

[Family_Dog]

Don't write them off. I think Darrell might just be in Cape Town at the moment, but the guys on the Hilux forum swear by his commitment to service. He also offers a discount on the Hilux Forum and would more than likely do so here as well.

Maybe you should email Darrell instead. He could most probably pick up on that before he returns to JHB.


-F_D

[Gerrit Loubser]

I have had an Ironman suspension on my Gen 3 for around 60000 km. I used them on only a few offroad trips and vacations; the car is used mainly by my wife for her daily commute, which does include town driving, a little highway and a short stretch of rather horrible secondary road. These were my experiences:

* I achieved around 55 mm of lift after fitting the suspension
* The shocks were much more noisy and less refined than the originals from the start
* The Paj's once very impressive on-tar road holding was not quite as great any more
* I always had the impression that the low frequency damping was inadequate
* Just before the 40000 km warranty ran out at, I noticed that the lower front strut bushes had been extruded out of their housings. Ironman acknowledged that they were experiencing this problem on vehicles with coil-over-shock strut suspensions, like the Gen 3 Paj, Prado, Fortuner and new Hilux. They sent me new bushes, but as I did not have the system fitted by one of their installation centers, they did not come to the party in terms of the cost of changing the bushes...
* At the moment the shocks are definitely worn and they did not wear out at the same rate, so the car tends to exhibit some rather strange wallowing behaviour upon turning into a corner hard
* The shocks are now so noisy that they sound almost like a little mountain stream

I am not sure what to fit next. I could not find anything wrong with the Ironman coils, but I will try to match them to different shocks next...

[CATS]

Mmmmm

Not very encouraging, especially since I need the car to be 100% THIS weekend, so I decided to go ahead and fit IM except for the rear coils, which they do not currently have in SA.

Well, I suppose they will be better than my worn out shocks, but it seems they will not last a lifetime and seem to be noisy

CATS

[LowRange]

I must have received a "Friday Afternoon" set. I have never noticed any funny noises.

CATS, did you only install shocks, or the front Coils as well? I don't think IM comes in a "Heavy Duty", like you had on your car.

Johan

[CATS]

I must have received a "Friday Afternoon" set. I have never noticed any funny noises.

CATS, did you only install shocks, or the front Coils as well? I don't think IM comes in a "Heavy Duty", like you had on your car.

Johan

Must say mine is silent as a mouse so far, they just seem a hel of a lot harder than the Old Man Emus, but it might be due to the worn out shocks that I had that gave me that nice wallowy feeling. I have forgotten how much worn out shocks affect a vehicle, the new ones are absolute day and night.

The IM seems to 'bottom out', or maybe the opposite of that not sure, when going over speedbumps quicker than you should, which I never experienced on the OME, even when worn out.

Johan I replaced the coils as well, as my old coils has sagged a bit, still waiting for the rear ones as they did not have stock, so currently running OME coil with IM shock at the rear. IM seem to have an extra half turn in the coil up front and they almost feel harder than my OME heavy if I recall correctly.

Time will tell!

CATS

[Christiaan]

Try Bilstein - +/-R8500 for a set installed.
Fully serviceable so no need to replace them ever...

[benhur]

Bilsteins at R 8K5 is a bit rof. And sevicing them is not going to cost you only R50 either. Cant justify that expense

Gerrit

My next set of shocks will definitely be Monroe's. I still have my original coils so if they do not work lekker on the Ironman coils I can always go back and add more spacers. I now have one set of spacers (10mm IIRC) in the rear with the Ironman to get the Pajero's gat up a bit as my rear bumper has take a lot of beatings already.