Bilstein D2 front shock fork adapters

[rovercanus]

For those of us running Bilstein 7100's in the front of our D2's Bilstein has fork adapters to eliminate the need of an adapter plate and to get rid of the hiem joint. They also now have poly bushings to eliminate the heims.
We found that the 10" standard body shock is the perfect length for a 3" to 4" lift without retained front springs.
Here's a few pictures from yesterdays install and the truck with 4" lift.
Try Steve at RTE for a part numbers, I don't have them.
I'll go out and test this set up some today.

 

[scottjal]

Awesome, thanks so much for posting. I was going to do it too once I got mine together. I have my parts on order. I think you and Steve did most of the legwork figuring this stuff out.

For shame on Bilstein on making this such a pain in the ass to figure out. Your contact people are Steve RTE to get part numbers and Paul at Eshocks.com to get them. I found you may not go to Bilstein direct to get anything, including tech help.

The crossbar adapter is part number 411338 and it is 3" center to center. According to Steve the rover is actually 2 15/16" so you might have to file a bit with a round file, Rovercanus???? comment???? Word of warning, Paul at eshocks seems to call this the 411337 adapter which is 2 1/2" so make sure you get the right one. This explains the two: http://www.shockwarehouse.com/images/5150a.jpg I ordered from eshocks and shock warehouse and it took both multiple tries to get the right damn part. Again shame on Bilstein for not even marking the part with a part number, they must come in a box mixed.

The rod end that replaces the heim joint is B4-LG1-Z004A00 and is also marked with 451667, this all according to Steve. I should have mine next week maybe.

These are cheap parts to make some pretty expensive shocks work, frigging shame.

 

[rovercanus]

You are correct, I forgot to add that the crossbar needs to be slotted slightly to fit properly.
If I can get my lazy daughter out of bed I'll go try these things.
I will have to extend my watts linkage, when I built mine I only had a 2" lift and didn't extend the arms far enough. This will actually give me about 2" more flex in the rear with 12" shocks.

 

[scottjal]

By the way the shocks themselves are part numbers:

Front: AK7110SB** Shorty Body Reserver
Ext Length 24.29"
Col Length 14.06"
Travel 10"

Rear: AK7110S** Standard body shrader valve, no reserver
Ext Length 26.06"
Col Length 16.03"
Travel 10"

All this advice pertains to a 2" lift with RTE springs. Or in my case I retained the SLS airbags in rear. For the RTE 3" kit Steve uses 12" travel shocks in the rear which needs RTE springs and the watts linkage piece, and gets you around having to go through the above adapters because you use the RTE lower shock adapter.

 

[Mongo]

so your putting a 10" shock on a 4" lift? I really hope your not using the shock to limit travel...I had 10" 7100's w/heims(never had a problem, and I wheeled the shit out of them) w/3" inch retained springs and had about 1/2" of shock left at full flex. So I guess my question would be what other than getting rid of the heim are you gaining from this?

 

[scottjal]

I don't know what he is gaining but with my 2" lift RTE springs on the front Steve says that if I were to use the RTE loop style front lower adapter (adds 1 1/4") I would be risking spring dislocation as it will extend farther than the free height of the spring.

Supposedly Bilsteins can be used to limit travel (top out) but not compression, they will be damaged if they bottom out.

I am still trying to find some slightly higher bump stops to keep out of that situation.

 

[rovercanus]

so your putting a 10" shock on a 4" lift? I really hope your not using the shock to limit travel...I had 10" 7100's w/heims(never had a problem, and I wheeled the shit out of them) w/3" inch retained springs and had about 1/2" of shock left at full flex. So I guess my question would be what other than getting rid of the heim are you gaining from this?

Tre's and radius arms are limiting travel mostly. The ten inch short body are needed with the adapter to prevent bottoming out.

 

[Mongo]

you could get some of these...

 

[rovercanus]

you could get some of these...

Nice! From the measurements Steve did the spring will fully compress before the shock bottoms out with this setup.

 

[traveltoad]

Nice! From the measurements Steve did the spring will fully compress before the shock bottoms out with this setup.

And oh what a feeling that is! lol

 

[Mongo]

So that's what I'm saying, what are gaining from a 4" spring with 10" shocks...it seems that you'd run the risk of bottoming out (fully extending the shock) because the spring will not limit travel...and with a shorter spring (2 or 3 inch), you'll run the risk of dislocating the spring with this set-up. There are simple solutions; limiting straps on the down travel, bumpstops for up, spring retainers..., but it's a really bad idea to have the shock travel to be the limiting factor in any suspension set-up...

If it's to remove the heim, then just beady to add some type of limit device is what i'm saying...

 

[rovercanus]

Remove the bottom mounts for the shock and jack your truck in the air. The suspension is limiting the travel, not the shock. As I said, the tre's and bushings are stopping the axle. We checked this yesterday. I'll be ok, really.

 

[rovercanus]

Seems to work well. Sorry, no cheese or watch shots.

 

[ptschram]

Seems to work well. Sorry, no cheese or watch shots.

Don't apologize, get back out there!

 

[rovercanus]

Don't apologize, get back out there!

Ok.

 

[I HATE PONIES]

What happened to your center caps?

 

[rovercanus]

What happened to your center caps?

They're there, you just can't see them because they are the new clear ones from Land Rover. Super rare!

 

[D Chapman]

They're there, you just can't see them because they are the new clear ones from Land Rover. Super rare!

I thought you could only get them from DAP?

What happened to the procomps?

 

[rovercanus]

The rear ProComps are in my shed. The fronts were shot. Almost no resistance left and the bodies were actually dented where they were somehow making contact with the upper shock mount. Very possibly from the deteriorated original rubber bushings that were replaced with poly bushes.

 

[Nomar]

Nice washer bottle!