BigJ
FRF Addict
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- Aug 5, 2010
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My 2010 Raptor just turned over 40,000 miles, and other than changing the air filter, the oil and rotating the tires, I've done zero maintence. From a functional perspective, other than a blown out wheel hub (http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f52/uh-crap-wheel-hub-blew-out-integrated-wheel-end-iwe-9606/), the truck's engine, transmission, transfer case and diffs have performed flawlessly.
But I need to be realistic. Of the 40k miles, conservatively speaking 3000-4000 of those miles were logged off road, and since I need this truck for daily commute and work use just as much as I want it for weekend play, I need to keep stuff checked and maintained.
I definitely am no expert when it comes to this stuff, so I called up a couple buddies who are, bribed them with some coffee and lunch, I grabbed my camera and we set to work.
The Binding
At around 10k miles, I installed the Truxxx leveling spacers (http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f9/i-leveled-front-truxxx-style-7617/). After reading some of the comments made in the Perch plus spacer thread (http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f9/perch-plus-1-spacer-10364/) I wanted to see what, if any damage I had due to them. My guess was I'd be just fine... turns out I was very wrong about that. We got the truck in the air, let it droop out and pulled the tire.
Here you can see the upper arm coming into contact with the spring
That's a leaking CV boot
Check out how stressed it is under full droop
Boot touching the spring
And its starting to crack. Just a matter of time until its shot for good
More stress
More contact
The thing to realize about this is we're seeing everything with the wheel straight. It only gets worse with the wheel turned. Here's evidence of that; what you're seeing is the Fox shock and CV boot. See how there are wear marks on the shock from the boot? Yikes.
The bottom line? The spacers are coming out and I'm going with the middle perch instead. I couldn't remove them this time because the Truxx spacer required cutting the stock studs up on top of the shock mount. We couldn't find one locally; turns out they're on order by Ford from Guam! Its gonna be a couple weeks before they show up. When they do, we'll pull them out, replace the boots and rebuild the CV's if we need to. I'll update with those results when we have them.
The Blown Shock
My passenger side rear shock is completely blown. Here you can see both rears side by side under very light pressure.
There’s not much to say about this one. Its just simply blown. It could be that I overloaded it; I spend lots of time in the dirt, I’m usually hauling around big heavy loads when I do, I carry heavy stuff for work from time to time... I have no doubt I have overloaded the Raptor’s 900lb payload capacity on occasion. It could be I hit a rut, or washboard, or whoop, or speed bump one time too hard for the extra load and it popped.
The bottom line? I’m looking into rebuild and replacement options. Not sure what I’m going to do yet.
The Bent Frame
First and foremost, this is NOT Raptorgate Round 2. I want no part of pointing fingers or playing the blame game. Ford gave us an unparalleled incredibly capable off road production vehicle under full factory warranty at a reasonable price. But in order to do so, they had to meet several VERY restrictive DOT requirements; shipping with the lower perch set to get the headlights where the DOT wants them, adding crush zones in critical spots because the DOT said to put them there, and on and on. Compromises between what Ford wanted to sell and what the DOT said they could had to be made, and you and I are left with the unintended consequences.
One of those consequences slapped me across the face pretty hard yesterday. I’ll admit right up front that I expected zero frame issues. I am not an extreme thrill seeking Raptor driver. I don’t jump my truck on a regular basis, and I don’t blast thru the desert at 100mph.
I do however take it off road, over whoops and washboard, over rocks and thru sand. I also carry a full compliment of camping and recovery gear when I do, and often a passenger. Like I said earlier, I have no doubt that I’ve pushed my payload over the Raptor’s 900lbs on occasion.
And the thing I’m most sure of? I am NOT a perfect driver. I’ve never run my truck into a wall of sand or into an unseen ditch, but there have been times where the “pucker factor” came into play... there have been times where I remember thinking “Yikes that hit harder than I expected” or “Ouch that hurt a little bit”. As hard as I try not to let it, it does happen. I aint perfect.
So even with all that in the back of my mind, I still went into yesterday with the “I’ll be fine” attitude. That frame bending stuff is relegated to the big speed big jump guys, right? I was so sure I’d be fine, in fact, that I made a bet: In preparation for yesterday, I had contacted RPG about a few of their products (see here http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f5/rpgs-stage-2-kit-rear-frame-support-fox-air-bumps-10553/ and here http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f5/rpgs-stage-3-kit-national-spring-leaf-springs-10591/), and the topic of their frame reinforcement kit and bump stops came up. The bet was that I’d buy the kit and stops only IF I was bent. If not, then they’d take it all back including any shipping and handling at their expense. How could I lose? Yeaaaahhhh...
There are two simple tests anyone can try in their driveway. 1) You can take two fingers and run them in the gap between the bed and cab. Visually mine looked ok, but I could feel a tightening of the gap ever so slightly as I moved from top to bottom. But in my opinion, that could be the result of body panel alignment or several other things, and I wasn’t convinced. So we ran the second test: 2) Remove your factory bump stop (just one bolt) and place a straight edge along the frame covering where the stop was. If you see daylight, you’re bent. If the straightedge sits flush against the frame, you’re just fine.
Here’s what mine looks like with the stop gone. Everything looks peachy, no?
Not so fast:
Here's a really crappy photochop where I'm trying to highlight the daylight you can see on my bent frame. You WILL NOT see that kind of daylight on a straight frame.
I couldn’t get a good pic with a tape measure in there, but it was right on around ⅜” Freaking sucks.
And if you really get in there, you can see some of the crush zone buckling
Needless to say, I lost that bet.
Bottom line? No this is not a design flaw. No I do not blame Ford. Yes, if I am totally honest with myself I have to admit that I most likely have over loaded it from time to time, that I am not perfect driver, and that there have been a few “pucker” moments ‘out there’. Combine all that and I come away with a better understanding of the limits of my truck, of how I want to continue to use it, of my own limits and with the understanding that there are good options out there that will solve this problem once and for all.
Once we saw the bend, it was a no brainer for me to bite the bullet and install the RPG stuff.
I hope this helps. I can speak from personal experience that I used to think the frame and shock stuff we’ve all seen go down on the forum was for the “big boys”; the guys who push their truck over land and thru the air far harder than I ever have or ever will. On this end of things, I now understand that I too am pushing my Raptor hard, sometimes too hard, but just in different ways. If you’ve got some off road miles on yours, maybe take a few minutes and drop those shocks, or check that frame. Hopefully you’re in great shape! But maybe you’re not, and it might be time to think about beefing things up just a touch, so you can keep on keepin on for years to come.
But I need to be realistic. Of the 40k miles, conservatively speaking 3000-4000 of those miles were logged off road, and since I need this truck for daily commute and work use just as much as I want it for weekend play, I need to keep stuff checked and maintained.
I definitely am no expert when it comes to this stuff, so I called up a couple buddies who are, bribed them with some coffee and lunch, I grabbed my camera and we set to work.
The Binding
At around 10k miles, I installed the Truxxx leveling spacers (http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f9/i-leveled-front-truxxx-style-7617/). After reading some of the comments made in the Perch plus spacer thread (http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f9/perch-plus-1-spacer-10364/) I wanted to see what, if any damage I had due to them. My guess was I'd be just fine... turns out I was very wrong about that. We got the truck in the air, let it droop out and pulled the tire.
Here you can see the upper arm coming into contact with the spring
That's a leaking CV boot
Check out how stressed it is under full droop
Boot touching the spring
And its starting to crack. Just a matter of time until its shot for good
More stress
More contact
The thing to realize about this is we're seeing everything with the wheel straight. It only gets worse with the wheel turned. Here's evidence of that; what you're seeing is the Fox shock and CV boot. See how there are wear marks on the shock from the boot? Yikes.
The bottom line? The spacers are coming out and I'm going with the middle perch instead. I couldn't remove them this time because the Truxx spacer required cutting the stock studs up on top of the shock mount. We couldn't find one locally; turns out they're on order by Ford from Guam! Its gonna be a couple weeks before they show up. When they do, we'll pull them out, replace the boots and rebuild the CV's if we need to. I'll update with those results when we have them.
The Blown Shock
My passenger side rear shock is completely blown. Here you can see both rears side by side under very light pressure.
There’s not much to say about this one. Its just simply blown. It could be that I overloaded it; I spend lots of time in the dirt, I’m usually hauling around big heavy loads when I do, I carry heavy stuff for work from time to time... I have no doubt I have overloaded the Raptor’s 900lb payload capacity on occasion. It could be I hit a rut, or washboard, or whoop, or speed bump one time too hard for the extra load and it popped.
The bottom line? I’m looking into rebuild and replacement options. Not sure what I’m going to do yet.
The Bent Frame
First and foremost, this is NOT Raptorgate Round 2. I want no part of pointing fingers or playing the blame game. Ford gave us an unparalleled incredibly capable off road production vehicle under full factory warranty at a reasonable price. But in order to do so, they had to meet several VERY restrictive DOT requirements; shipping with the lower perch set to get the headlights where the DOT wants them, adding crush zones in critical spots because the DOT said to put them there, and on and on. Compromises between what Ford wanted to sell and what the DOT said they could had to be made, and you and I are left with the unintended consequences.
One of those consequences slapped me across the face pretty hard yesterday. I’ll admit right up front that I expected zero frame issues. I am not an extreme thrill seeking Raptor driver. I don’t jump my truck on a regular basis, and I don’t blast thru the desert at 100mph.
I do however take it off road, over whoops and washboard, over rocks and thru sand. I also carry a full compliment of camping and recovery gear when I do, and often a passenger. Like I said earlier, I have no doubt that I’ve pushed my payload over the Raptor’s 900lbs on occasion.
And the thing I’m most sure of? I am NOT a perfect driver. I’ve never run my truck into a wall of sand or into an unseen ditch, but there have been times where the “pucker factor” came into play... there have been times where I remember thinking “Yikes that hit harder than I expected” or “Ouch that hurt a little bit”. As hard as I try not to let it, it does happen. I aint perfect.
So even with all that in the back of my mind, I still went into yesterday with the “I’ll be fine” attitude. That frame bending stuff is relegated to the big speed big jump guys, right? I was so sure I’d be fine, in fact, that I made a bet: In preparation for yesterday, I had contacted RPG about a few of their products (see here http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f5/rpgs-stage-2-kit-rear-frame-support-fox-air-bumps-10553/ and here http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f5/rpgs-stage-3-kit-national-spring-leaf-springs-10591/), and the topic of their frame reinforcement kit and bump stops came up. The bet was that I’d buy the kit and stops only IF I was bent. If not, then they’d take it all back including any shipping and handling at their expense. How could I lose? Yeaaaahhhh...
There are two simple tests anyone can try in their driveway. 1) You can take two fingers and run them in the gap between the bed and cab. Visually mine looked ok, but I could feel a tightening of the gap ever so slightly as I moved from top to bottom. But in my opinion, that could be the result of body panel alignment or several other things, and I wasn’t convinced. So we ran the second test: 2) Remove your factory bump stop (just one bolt) and place a straight edge along the frame covering where the stop was. If you see daylight, you’re bent. If the straightedge sits flush against the frame, you’re just fine.
Here’s what mine looks like with the stop gone. Everything looks peachy, no?
Not so fast:
Here's a really crappy photochop where I'm trying to highlight the daylight you can see on my bent frame. You WILL NOT see that kind of daylight on a straight frame.
I couldn’t get a good pic with a tape measure in there, but it was right on around ⅜” Freaking sucks.
And if you really get in there, you can see some of the crush zone buckling
Needless to say, I lost that bet.
Bottom line? No this is not a design flaw. No I do not blame Ford. Yes, if I am totally honest with myself I have to admit that I most likely have over loaded it from time to time, that I am not perfect driver, and that there have been a few “pucker” moments ‘out there’. Combine all that and I come away with a better understanding of the limits of my truck, of how I want to continue to use it, of my own limits and with the understanding that there are good options out there that will solve this problem once and for all.
Once we saw the bend, it was a no brainer for me to bite the bullet and install the RPG stuff.
I hope this helps. I can speak from personal experience that I used to think the frame and shock stuff we’ve all seen go down on the forum was for the “big boys”; the guys who push their truck over land and thru the air far harder than I ever have or ever will. On this end of things, I now understand that I too am pushing my Raptor hard, sometimes too hard, but just in different ways. If you’ve got some off road miles on yours, maybe take a few minutes and drop those shocks, or check that frame. Hopefully you’re in great shape! But maybe you’re not, and it might be time to think about beefing things up just a touch, so you can keep on keepin on for years to come.
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