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All over the country, there are different types of food, ways of life, and truck parts. This was the case with what recently showed up in our shop. Something for us west coast guys was not as familiar compared to the Midwest or East Coast.
Coilovers have long been popular, but with the increase in popularity of rockcrawling and rock bouncing there is a new player – an air strut. This is where Jensen Brother’s Off-Road comes into play.
“Jensen Bros. was founded in 2015,” Kirk Jensen said. “I come from a background in automotive technology and technical support in the Powersports industry while my brother Russell comes from a background in digital marketing. With these two skill sets, we sought out to make a better experience for online shoppers for off-road parts and accessories.”
We were looking to do something different with Project Redneck, our 1997 Jeep Wrangler TJ project. With its recent axle upgrade, we knew that it was time to ditch the factory coil spring and jump to something different.
We went with the 16-inch travel ORI Strut. This will give us all the wheel travel we will need to fit our new RockJock 44s. We also loved the color that the struts came out, matches everything on the Jeep already.
Out west we see plenty of Jeeps doing coilover conversions, while there is nothing wrong with that we wanted to be different. With the help of the Jensen Brother’s, we looked at using a set of ORI Struts and our choice to go with the STX Strut.
“The STX Strut is a popular and versatile off-road strut/shock combination for rock crawlers, trucks, buggies, desert racers, and other custom off-road builds,” Kirk explained. “ORI Struts have a tuneable bottom pressure for stability and greatly reduces unloading, fully adjustable ride height, velocity sensitive compression damping if you hit something hard, the spring rate changes.”
To continue with our black and green theme on Redneck we opted to go with the green anodizing. The struts are also available in black, red, blue, orange, clear, and gold.
There are some benefits of going with a strut compared to using a coilover as the struts are extremely stable, customizable, and fully rebuildable. There is no need to figure out a proper spring rate and the struts can be adjusted out on the trail if needed by way of their seven-position externally adjustable rebound damping.
Adjustments to the strut are made easy by way of two Schrader valves, one on the bottom shaft of the strut and one on the top of the body.
ORI Struts come in a wide range of sizes to accommodate any project. With sizes from 8-20 inches (sizes go up in two-inch increments) and a load capacity of 1,900 pounds per strut, there is an option for whatever you are working on.
Stay tuned as we out fit Project Redneck with the struts and get the Jeep back on the trail. For more information on Jensen Brother’s, be sure to visit their website.
