Shock Service?

dwphoto

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Thousand Oaks, CA
Welp, we all have at at least 4 them on each of our vehicles.

Who do you have rebuild/revalve ? Name, Contact info ( website, IG etc ) where are they located

If you do it yourself, where do you get your seals and shock parts?

Let's get a list going of companies/people that are reputable. Once we have a good list going we can add it to the Resource tab and there will be a list of sorts for people to choose from.

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GOOOO!
 
I rebuild them myself. Get the parts at Kartek. And when you're rebuilding I always buy shafts because they are cheap (not worth dicking with nicks and have them leak; in my opinion for all the hassle)
 
I service/rebuild/repair in Central Ca (Visalia to be exact). It’s a side gig for me so I don’t take on a bunch of work at one time due to my actual day job and family time but I’ve been doing it for 8 years now and have serviced hundreds of shocks. I dedicated a portion of my garage for shock work. Shockseals.com is the only company I use for seal kits. I get most of my hard parts like uniballs, shafts, rod ends, and other miscellaneous parts from Kartek, Mckenzies, Downsouth Motorsports and Poly performance to name a few. I’ve gained a ton of knowledge over the years and it’s been a fun ride. It pays my Raptor payment so that’s nice lol. I take care of most of the Central Valley with local drop offs. I’ve only had a few guys send me shocks via mail from either So Cal, nor Cal or out of state.

I don’t tune and I don’t think I’ll ever dabble into that. I always revert that work to Kevin at Dialed Shock Prep, Mcmasterfabber or Roth shocks. Much respect for those guys.

You can see all my work on my Instagram page @brandon_miller_prep.

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I’ve dipped my toes in a few pairs of shocks over the years.. Believe it or not Adam with Clean Dezert was the first person to ever show me how to work on shocks way back when I was only 17 years old. I still remember printing out my Mapquest directions and stealing my moms car for the day haha! He had offered to lend me a couple hours of his time along with his apartments garage to open up one of my shocks, revalve it, and then walked me through doing the second shock myself. Now many many years later I’ve done shocks for a surprising amount of people and I’m still amazed at how busy I am. I need to take things full time but that’s a massive leap, hopefully this year I’ll make that jump.

Beyond regular service I do also do removals/installs, ball park valving and bypass tube setups, color changes, major and minor repair work, add tubes/reservoir ports, suspension setup consultation for shops, You name it, I can handle it. Focusing on suspension tuning has expanded me into further understanding suspension geometry and setups and really has shown me how different link geometry’s handle in the dirt.

Parts wise i either go direct to manufacturer, Mckenzies helps me a ton (It helps i live 4 blocks from them) Tylor at Kartek is a huge help as well, Shock seals.com, etc.
 

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Friends and I have done a few sets in the garage. Getting supplies either from kartek or shockseals.com. I'm going to try onyx on Monday for my bypasses just because I don't have space or a vice in the garage right now.

Definitely planning on having a shock corner if I ever get a bigger garage.
 
I’ve dipped my toes in a few pairs of shocks over the years.. Believe it or not Adam with Clean Dezert was the first person to ever show me how to work on shocks way back when I was only 17 years old. I still remember printing out my Mapquest directions and stealing my moms car for the day haha! He had offered to lend me a couple hours of his time along with his apartments garage to open up one of my shocks, revalve it, and then walked me through doing the second shock myself. Now many many years later I’ve done shocks for a surprising amount of people and I’m still amazed at how busy I am. I need to take things full time but that’s a massive leap, hopefully this year I’ll make that jump.

Beyond regular service I do also do removals/installs, ball park valving and bypass tube setups, color changes, major and minor repair work, add tubes/reservoir ports, suspension setup consultation for shops, You name it, I can handle it. Focusing on suspension tuning has expanded me into further understanding suspension geometry and setups and really has shown me how different link geometry’s handle in the dirt.

Parts wise i either go direct to manufacturer, Mckenzies helps me a ton (It helps i live 4 blocks from them) Tylor at Kartek is a huge help as well, Shock seals.com, etc.
I went into a pair of shocks that had a Dialed sticker on them and I could see that you did a great job and everything was correct . I can tell you do great work! I just put them back together and left it alone.
 
I am a cheap ass and do them myself. I have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Mostly through trail and error in my own stuff. There is a lot of information out there if you spend hours on the internet…..at work of course.

I get my parts from Khris at shockseals.com Kartek and Poly Performance. I have had great customer service from all 3 places.

I have quite a few shock specific tools in my garage, nitrogen bottle/no loss fill adapter, aluminum shaft vice blocks, seal bullet etc.

I am in Ventura and willing to help out if you are close.

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Since everyone’s doing cool origin stories I’ve been doing shocks for 3 years now, started in SoCal now in Surprise AZ, I got a 30 minute lesson at the fabschool and thought I could build shocks, 2 years after graduating and not touching anything and offered to rebuild a set for my buddy while drunk around a fire. I built 1 shock that was awful and one was totally fucked and I set the IFP wrong and couldn’t figure out why the shock wasn’t compressing, called Kevin at Dialed and he repaired my buddy’s shock the night before a trip and saved the day, and after that I couldn’t get enough of tearing apart shocks and learning how to rebuild and tune and basically worked on shocks for free for like 6 months and tried to build the best shocks I possibly could and eventually went Full time and left my Aerospace Job building Merlin engines for SpaceX. Shocks and rockets have a lot of similarities like they need to seal to work so that wasn’t that bad. Currently my focus is on Tuning, Temperature control , and my own type of live valve ish tuning for bypass shocks using computer and telemetry data. Mostly I just like helping with cool build though and preping cars the right way so they last in the desert.
 

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I offer shock services as well as suspension installs/fabrication up in the hi desert. (Hence the name lol) started with doing my own shocks about 13 years ago when I owned an mis match of every brand 😂. and just really enjoy working on shocks and the challenges that come with them. For the last 1-2 years I have been diving more into the valving/suspension tuning side of everything. We are super close to Johnson valley so it’s easier for us to setup test/tune days as wel! IMG_2341.jpegIMG_2009.jpegIMG_1984.jpegIMG_2212.jpegIMG_1302.jpegIMG_1303.jpeg
 
👍 @HiDesertMotorSports
Taylor took care of my front shocks, sway aways, great customer service, answered all my questions patiently.
Big difference when everything is lined up correctly in my case…..would go back to him and get more done…
BTW he’s got very nice truck!! @juberafab killed it
Thank you for the kind words dude! Glad we checked all the boxes for you! 🤘🤘🤘
 
Hello everyone. I don't do many rebuilds anymore so this is for anyone doing your own serve. I have seal kits and part in stock if you ever have to work on our brand of shocks, they operate different than other brands, so contact me if you need to do any adjustments and I'll help free of charge. Here is a logo for your site or whatever use.
 

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I’ve dipped my toes in a few pairs of shocks over the years.. Believe it or not Adam with Clean Dezert was the first person to ever show me how to work on shocks way back when I was only 17 years old. I still remember printing out my Mapquest directions and stealing my moms car for the day haha! He had offered to lend me a couple hours of his time along with his apartments garage to open up one of my shocks, revalve it, and then walked me through doing the second shock myself. Now many many years later I’ve done shocks for a surprising amount of people and I’m still amazed at how busy I am. I need to take things full time but that’s a massive leap, hopefully this year I’ll make that jump.

Beyond regular service I do also do removals/installs, ball park valving and bypass tube setups, color changes, major and minor repair work, add tubes/reservoir ports, suspension setup consultation for shops, You name it, I can handle it. Focusing on suspension tuning has expanded me into further understanding suspension geometry and setups and really has shown me how different link geometry’s handle in the dirt.

Parts wise i either go direct to manufacturer, Mckenzies helps me a ton (It helps i live 4 blocks from them) Tylor at Kartek is a huge help as well, Shock seals.com, etc.
i may have shown you how to pull apart shocks... but talking to you now, the amount of info you have learned from that day, makes me look like a total rookie. The knowledge you have now is impressive... speaking of which, at somepoint i would like to talk to you about the front of my truck and bring those back in.... although i really dont want to pull the shocks off. lol
 
i may have shown you how to pull apart shocks... but talking to you now, the amount of info you have learned from that day, makes me look like a total rookie. The knowledge you have now is impressive... speaking of which, at somepoint i would like to talk to you about the front of my truck and bring those back in.... although i really dont want to pull the shocks off. lol
Wax on wax off.. haha

What are you wanting to achieve with the shocks? I can always remove and reinstall them for you, but then also you have to bring the truck here and drop it off and return later that evening or following day and we aren’t exactly neighbors, but depending on what you want to change/fix on them I can likely make the necessary changes with only the bypasses and not having to remove the coilovers
 
If your a cheap ass like me and do everything yourself you can save a bunch of money in the IE and buy your seals at "Orings and Things" in Fontana, they have always had everything in stock for me and offer sound advise on upgrades like X rings or material choice etc. Hydrolics = Shocks, almost.

As far as valving advice, I have always had better luck staying away from fancy flutter stacks and such, rather straight shim stacks, messing with bleed holes, double stacking and rate plates is where it's at. if you have a limited amount of shock like a single 2.0 per wheel then I have had excellent results restricting flow into reservoirs.
 
Do my own myself plus I’ve done literally hundreds of revalves, rebuilds and modifications at the shop.
Get all my seals from kris shockseals.com
 

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Back in the day I learned to do my own rebuilds because I was cheap and poor. Moved to Idaho started racing UTV’s and was forced to do my own rebuilding and revalving. New truck was setup by SDG, and I haven’t decided who will be doing my rebuilds and fine tuning (any recommendations)?

Seals: shockseals.com
Oil: racing-fox red from Kartek, pre runners/UTV’s-Shell Tellus S2 22
 
If your a cheap ass like me and do everything yourself you can save a bunch of money in the IE and buy your seals at "Orings and Things" in Fontana, they have always had everything in stock for me and offer sound advise on upgrades like X rings or material choice etc. Hydrolics = Shocks, almost.

As far as valving advice, I have always had better luck staying away from fancy flutter stacks and such, rather straight shim stacks, messing with bleed holes, double stacking and rate plates is where it's at. if you have a limited amount of shock like a single 2.0 per wheel then I have had excellent results restricting flow into reservoirs.
I found o rings and things to be way more expensive for seals than anywhere else. just a wiper seal was 15 dollars from them. a whole seal kit for the same shock was 14.99 at the time. curious what you pay for seals from them?
 
I found o rings and things to be way more expensive for seals than anywhere else. just a wiper seal was 15 dollars from them. a whole seal kit for the same shock was 14.99 at the time. curious what you pay for seals from them?
It depends but my experience has been they are 1/4 the price of the places online, I'll post my receipt for rebuilding my Kusters when I find it for reference.
 
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