ATV suspension mod - fabrication & fitment of spring spacers #1615

Fitting 'lift kits' to 4x4s is something I did on a regular basis back in the UK, both to our fleet vehicles & on customers vehicles too. There are a few options when it comes to improving your vehicle's off-road performance. The best way is to replace all the springs with basically longer & sometimes stiffer ones. This usually has to be done in conjunction with replacing all the shock absorbers for longer ones, new brake flexi lines & sometimes even transmission mounting spacers to help re-align the prop shafts with the diffs to minimise U-J angles etc...this is an expensive option though & often requires a lot of work (labour cost) so not to everyone's budget... Another option is to fit spring 'spacers', these are fitted onto the axles usually and basically increase the length of the spring. Easy to fit and pretty cost effective in comparison to the first option. With ATVs & RoVs (Side by Sides) the job is even easier... Far too often I hear riders complain that the springs have 'sagged' on their ATV causing it to sit much lower than when it was new. Sure, coil springs do tend to 'settle' over time and loose their strength, but fitting winches & other equipment also compresses the suspension too reducing the ground clearance. Replacing just the springs of the coil over shock units usually isn't an option as the components are normally supplied as a single unit. So I was thinking, why not do to an ATV what we did to the 4x4s? I took a look, stripped a coil over shock unit and did some measurements. This video covers the machining of the spacers, the technique used to strip the suspension unit, fit the new spacers & rebuild them. I'm often asked about this problem so I'm very confident this video will be helpful to many an ATV rider & RoV driver alike... Andy Mechanic