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Pines to Spines SFD strut spacers


XPLORx4
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For those of you who have installed the Pines to Spines SFD strut spacers, I have some questions.

1. How much did you torque the 2 19mm nuts holding the upper mount to the lower mount?

2. How is the alignment holding up? I adjusted the camber on my spacers which resulted in the studs being approximately in the middle of the adjustment range. However, after a full weekend of rock-crawling and driving on very rough roads, the studs had moved all the way outboard, which resulted in being camber-positive.

 

What is your experience using the spacers? I was thinking that they need a selection of fixed adjustment plates to position the bolts in a particular location to keep the bolts from sliding. Probably 3 different plates per side for 5 camber-adjustment angles.

 

The plates would essentially be square with 2 slotted channels that nest into the camber adjustment slots. Round holes would be drilled into the slotted channels:

 

Max Positive Camber

Plate 1: (O====)

Plate 1: (O====)

 

Med. Positive Camber

Plate 2: (=O===)

Plate 2: (=O===)

 

Neutral Camber

Plate 3: (==O==)

Plate 3: (==O==)

 

Plate 2 would be reversed to provide med. negative camber, and plate 1 would be reversed to provide max negative camber.

 

 

If there are alternatives to ensuring that the camber doesn't change because the bolts slip, please provide your experience.

 

Thanks!

 

 

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Hey @XPLORx4.

  1. Torque specs are 65-80 ft-lbs for the flange nuts.  Let me know if I didn't pass our install guide over previously with those and other specs and I'll resend.
  2. While we've not heard other complaints of shifting, we're sorry to hear it happened on your truck.  Do you recall how much torque have been applied previously, and whether it was tightened with the vehicle resting on the ground?  Our observations during installs is that the strut mount "hat" (the OE component with embedded rubber) initially prevents the two mating surfaces of the strut spacer from being parallel until there's sufficient weight on it to flex the rubber.

As for your fixed-plate idea, it may be something we can help with.  I think I'm imagining it differently than you are describing, though.  I follow the plate combinations for +/0/- offset, but would the plates exist inside the upper mount under the flange nuts, or elsewhere?

 

A previous consideration of ours was to use a thicker plate with two holes, instead of using separate flat washers.  This "washer" would greatly increase the surface contact area inside the upper mount, which would clamp things much better.  That approach may also allow for other means to further fix the position.

 

Anyway, feel free to carry this convo here or reach out to us directly if we can help.

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Hi! Thanks for the followup message. What I'm thinking is this: On the upper mount, which is slotted, you would place a square plate that on top has holes drilled into it to accommodate the studs. On 3 different plates, holes would be placed in the center, 1/2" offset, and 1" offset (for example, assuming the total slot length is 2") These three plates would work for 5 positions: -1", -1/2", 0", +1/2", +1", each corresponding to a different gross camber adjustment. Fine tuning could be done using camber bolts if needed, although I'd rather use the original large-diameter strut-to-knuckle bolts.

 

On the underside of the plate are two raised slots that mate perfectly into the slots on the upper mount. So, this piece fits into the slots and makes it so that the bolt holes cannot move even if the nuts aren't fully tightened. After the slotted plate is in place, the washers and flange nuts are installed and tightened. I assume this piece would be machined out of a piece of billet material.

 

Without torque specs, I tightened the nuts to 95 ft-lbs, and I did tighten them initially with the weight not fully on the ground, in order to get a ballpark camber adjustment. That kind of caused the lower mount to skew a little, so it was a little bit of a fuss to get them both lined up. Subsequent adjustments were made after the truck weight was fully on the struts. Of course I had to measure the camber with the weight on the ground, then estimate how much to move the lower mount relative to the upper in order to improve the camber.

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