Dangerously Poor Rancho QuickLift Welds

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OverlandExpy

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Hey everyone,

I recently purchased some Rancho Quicklift struts for my 04 EB, and noticed the welds were terrible. Specifically where the lower strut mount is welded to the strut itself. See below:

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I was wondering if anyone with some expertise thinks that these welds would be sufficient? I am planning on taking my expy offroad and hitting some decently hard trails. Not trying to do any crazy rock crawling but as my username suggests I am planning on doing plenty of overlanding.

My plan now is to weld up some reinforcements on the edges, but I am concerned about applying extreme heat so close to the pressurized gas chamber that is the strut.

Anyone seen anything like this? I talked to rancho and they sent me new ones that are welded the same exact way. It looks like this is just how these are manufactured.
 
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OverlandExpy

OverlandExpy

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Thanks for the responses everyone, really appreciate it. So I received the replacement parts from rancho yesterday, and the new struts had the same defect (or designed flaw) as the other ones. So instead of waiting another month and a half dealing with rancho again, I just decided to fix it myself. First step was grinding away the paint. Used a cutting disk to get in the hard to reach spots:

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Wrapped some wet rags around the bushing and the strut to keep the temps down, then welded it up. Not my best welds ever but I'm sure it won't break as easy now!

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And just for ***** and giggles here is the old air suspension next to the new quicklifts with my supreme suspension lift on top of that.

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Langer

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It’s awesome that 1) you can recognize poor welds/design, and 2) that you can improve them yourself. Jealous of the skill set. Hope they work well for you.
 

sjwelds

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Looks good.

So you're doing a Rancho Quicklift plus a spacer on top? Are you sure your suspension components have enough travel for that much lift?
 

Langer

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Looks good.

So you're doing a Rancho Quicklift plus a spacer on top? Are you sure your suspension components have enough travel for that much lift?

I’d be a little worried, too. I tried adding the 1” the 5100 Bilsteins can do to my already spacered 3” readylift up front and it was too much.
 
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OverlandExpy

OverlandExpy

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Yeah it's definitely been a challenge getting them in lol. The fronts took quite awhile and I'm still trying to figure out how to fit the back ones in, only had a little while to work on it today. As far as the travel of the components, I've talked to everyone and anyone on these forums that did a lift on their 2nd gen, and it seems like 3 inches of lift is about as much as you're going to get. The rancho quick lift advertises 1" lift in the front and 0.75" in the rear. I put 2" spacers on top of that on both the front and the rear. So theoretically they should fit. The front upper control arm is sitting on the coil when the tire is off the ground:
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Other than that the fronts seem fine. The rears are definitely extending the brake and abs lines to their limit. But I don't plan to have tires in the air regularly on the trails I'll be going on so I'm not too worried.
 
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OverlandExpy

OverlandExpy

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Guess that's how they weld in China. Disgraceful they'd sell something like that. Probably don't even know how it should be done. Good work, man!

What really chaps my ass is that I got in touch with their customer support and showed them the pictures of the welds, they took a month to send me replacements, and the replacements were just as bad. It seems thats how they are all made. The front ones are perfectly fine though.
 

sjwelds

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Yeah looks like you could take a deep breath and blow the end right off.
 

Broncoholic

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As far as the travel of the components, I've talked to everyone and anyone on these forums that did a lift on their 2nd gen, and it seems like 3 inches of lift is about as much as you're going to get. The rancho quick lift advertises 1" lift in the front and 0.75" in the rear. I put 2" spacers on top of that on both the front and the rear. So theoretically they should fit.
Is the spacer 2" tall? Or is it a spacer that gives 2" of lift? Because of suspension geometry, a 2" tall spacer will give more than 2" of lift (probably more like 3" of lift), which means the combo will push components to, and probably beyond, max capability.
 

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