8IGHT Platform Shock End installation and maintenance

Hi team,

  I wanted to give everyone a brief run through of our recommendation for installing and maintaining shock ends. While these components are often overlooked, their failure can be a very frustrating end to an otherwise great result on the track.

  The most important piece of information I can relay to you is ensuring you are getting the shock ends installed correctly.  The way that they are designed, they rely on the stalk of the shock shaft to engage and ‘interference fit’ the socket portion of the eyelet.  This is how they gain their strength in relation to the pivot ball.  If the shock shaft is threaded in incompletely, it is possible for the thread to wallow slightly, and weaken the formed threads to the point that the shock shaft can pull free from the eyelet in a moderate to severe impact.

  I have created a simple diagram demonstrating the correct shaft to eyelet engagement below.

  Maintaining your Shock Ends is actually quite simple.  I recommend every time the eyelets are removed from the shock shaft, for any reason, they are simply disposed of and replaced with fresh parts.  This way you can be confident that your race won’t be sabotaged by a $2 part.

  When installed completely/correctly, your shock ends can last indefinitely, but once they are removed from the shock shaft and reinstalled, this is when the formed threads in the eyelet can become compromised and offer less than perfect engagement, thus lowering the reliability substantially.

Brian Kinney

TLR