To the garbage the rancho's go.
What my engineer thinks MIGHT be going on. 
It sounds like maybe the nitrogen charge leaked out somehow. If he had water under the boot, it sounds like maybe the shock boot was pulled down to the point the drain slits weren't exposed causing sediment/water to sit on the seal. It's possible during the course of normal shock travel that a little piece of dirt got stuck under some of the lips (we use a multi-lip seal on the RS9000XL's to do our best at preventing this) and caused a leak path for the gas charge.
The good news is that we use full hydraulic valving on the RS9000XL line that will work in the presence of no gas charge. The gas charge just increases performance further. I actually tune and develop the Rancho RS5000X and RS9000XL shocks without gas charge to ensure performance is up to par, and then gas charge them in production to make them even better.
The "swishing" sound coming from the bottom is oil flowing through the adjuster valve and is normal. If there was a leak path down there, oil would be evident as that part is filled with oil only.
A check to see if the unit is bad is to forcibly pull up on the unit once it's compressed to see how hard it is to pull up. If the hydraulic valving is engaged you will feel the resistance in both the upward and downward parts of the cycle.
It sounds like maybe the nitrogen charge leaked out somehow. If he had water under the boot, it sounds like maybe the shock boot was pulled down to the point the drain slits weren't exposed causing sediment/water to sit on the seal. It's possible during the course of normal shock travel that a little piece of dirt got stuck under some of the lips (we use a multi-lip seal on the RS9000XL's to do our best at preventing this) and caused a leak path for the gas charge.
The good news is that we use full hydraulic valving on the RS9000XL line that will work in the presence of no gas charge. The gas charge just increases performance further. I actually tune and develop the Rancho RS5000X and RS9000XL shocks without gas charge to ensure performance is up to par, and then gas charge them in production to make them even better.
The "swishing" sound coming from the bottom is oil flowing through the adjuster valve and is normal. If there was a leak path down there, oil would be evident as that part is filled with oil only.
A check to see if the unit is bad is to forcibly pull up on the unit once it's compressed to see how hard it is to pull up. If the hydraulic valving is engaged you will feel the resistance in both the upward and downward parts of the cycle.
After letting them warm up today, the one appeared to have a small puddle underneath it with a mixture of water and susp. fluid. One felt like it had ok pressure but the other seemed like it had some water in it. It also seemed like both at the very least had a slight bit of air getting by the seal.
