air suspension

[Hally]

I'm looking at putting air suspension on the rear of my defender 110 ute (removing the coils altogether). Airbag man is brissy's price was around $1300 the dimensions of the air bag would be at full extension 15" which is about the same as my 2" lift that I have at the moment so it's pretty much useless does anyone make spacers for the bottom seat of the airbag to sit on or do they make longer airbags & is it possible to fit rangie ones?

[ytt105]

My 93 Rangie has EAS. I love it!

Its done 270,000k and still has the original air bags. Only problem is that it takes a few minutes to fully pump up if left stationary for a couple of days.

I'm thinking of possibly doing an 'endless air' setup and connecting that to my tank as opposed to rebuilding the compressor, any comments.

I'd be surprised if it wouldn't fit onto a Defender. They have the same suspension as the older Rangies don't they.

[Disco3]

Hally, they can do an upgrade of the internals to provide a piston with additional travel. Costs a bit more but worth it. I have these on my Defender ute. Its good being able to control height from in the cab. Ride comfort and articulation is improved in my opinion. Overall a much more versatile set up than coils and the Firestone bags have a pretty good reputation for reliability.

[Hally]

cheers guy's for the feed back Disco3 the guy I was talking to told me about a defender they supplied all the gear for in mackay might have been yours he didn't mention anything about a piston come to think of it he didn't seem to tell me much at all

[Disco3]

Yes that was mine. I'm pretty sure we ended up with 19" of travel instead of 15".

[Hally]

now i'm going to ask the obvious question got any pics?

[Disco3]

Yep, See if I can post them from home tonight.

[Disco3]

Some photos as requested. Hope this works.

[Maggot4x4]

Some photos as requested. Hope this works.

Thats a sweet set up, do you have the part numbers of the bags you used with the 19" travel?

[Disco3]

No sorry I don't have the part numbers, but the airbag man in Brissy should be able to help.

[Hally]

Cheers for the photo's disco3 thats exactly what im after .
I'm still not convinced though, I would have to get spacers made so I can get the clearence i need just to fit the 36's I have on it at the moment if I got the longer piston that would only give me 4" of down travel at the moment I have about 9" of down travel with my coil springs dont want to loose that

by the way great looking defender the font end seems to flex quite well and looking at that exhaust I'm guessing there might be a V8 under the bonnet

[Disco3]

Yea Hally quite observant. 3.9 EFI with ZF 4 speed auto. The rear has plenty of down travel with the extended Bilstein shocks and adjusted mounts. Its hard to pick the wheels off the ground which is what I was after. A 2" lifted Defender with the typical coil/shock set up won't sit in this whole with all wheels on the ground. The front has slotted bushes, rotated swivel housings and the bottom coil base is spaced off the axle, and fitted with long travel 80 series OME shocks.

[uninformed]

the quality of the workman ship looks top notch, just curious why you kept the standard rear trailing arms and chassis mounts and the horrible rear shock mount, that has a tendency to destroy shockes

serg

[Disco3]

Serg I know what you are saying but what you can't see is that the whole A frame has been rebuilt. We have tried to design the suspension so that the trailing arms are not under load. This means the original arms don't have to be upgraded, although I may beef them up later. I did compete in the CQ Offroad Challenge on the weekend against some pretty awesome competition. Mine was one of only a couple of vehicles without 35/36" tyres and big lifts and we achieved a very credible 5th place after blowing one complete stage for one of the cars moving off while the navi was fixing his seatbelt, and withdrawing from one night stage after haevy rain making the track dangerous in our opinion. There were lots of people thinking the Defender was in the wrong place at scrutineering on Friday night but they had changed their minds by Saturday night after they saw what it could do. The event was pretty difficult with lots of breakages (although mostly to do with driver error) but nothing went wrong for the Defender. The shock mounts have also been changed quite a bit although again it might not be noticeable in the photo. We have welded a new mounting plate to the chassis and fixed the mounts at a much better angle that allows them to wore more efficiently. It might sho wup better in this photo below.

[Disco3]

Sorry see if this works



[/img]

[uninformed]

with that much work being done i would have thought that the chassis mounts for the trailing arms would have been removed and the arms extended up to the outrigger. this #1 gets them out the way, #2 reduces rear steer and bush binding and # will help the dynamics in hill climbes etc.

the shock mount only looks to be raised?? after many questions and some good info from "portalrover"(bill) the best angle for the top of the rear shocks is pretty much what LR came up with on the series 2 disco's
they really do bind at stock angle.

your rig looks and perfroms great, and great to hear your giving the "others" a good shake up

chuck in some MaxiDrive low range gears and some 36's and you'll be killing them

serg

[Hally]

X2 serg I run a 30% lower first gear in the zf and maxi rock crawler in the transfer case & 36" tyres at the time I was putting them in I thought they would be too low but it's perfect. Take of is great at a set of lights with the 36' 0-100 in 10 sec slightly out tune as well

[Disco3]

Hally I have been toying with the maxi crawler gears for the transfer case, but was a bit concerned it would be too low for general four wheeling. At present 2nd low in the ZF works really well for general stuff, even in the Off Challenge on the week end, but I do want a lower first for the downhuill stuff. I will probably go to 35" tyres but your feedback on how the low range transfer gears work for general stuff would be most helpful.

Serg, the shock angles are different from stock (can't pick it up well in the photos) but I will check out the D2 and eally appreciate your comments. I like the way the D2 trailing arms mount to the chassis and was thinking sort of along these lines for the future but we will see. The good thing about a ute is that you only have to take off the tray and you can work on this stuff pretty easily.

You may not have noticed but it's about a 111" wheelbase now. When we changed the A frame and aligned the diff angle we had to shunt the top coil mounts back about 20mm allong the chassis and then cut and remount the bases on the axles to get them horizontal again. It has been a lot of work, but everything seems to have a cause and effect that has to be worked through.

[jbell]

Great work Disco3 great to see more defenders getting
some work done.. A few more pics would be good too..

Hally a few pics of your work done would be good too..

To keep the defender guys inspired !!!


cheers Jeff

[uninformed]

i also have the maxi drive low range gear set, but in the 49%. stock r380.

i haven't done alot off road,but with my dual axle trailer at 1.9t they rock.

i still can't get my head around how the rear trailing arms could have there load reduced. its link suspension. they have to be transmiting the drive to the chassis. doesn't matter how strong you make the a frame.

second question. how do you have stock arms if you have moved the coil mount back 20mm???????

serg

[Disco3]

Serg, the standard length trailing arms fit partly due to the rolling of the diff and partly due to the angled bushes we used on the chassis mount. Heres another photo of work on the chassis and A frame mount.


[img[IMG]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i103/ ... ber017.jpg

[Disco3]

[img][img]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i103/ ... ber017.jpg[/img][/img]

[Disco3]

[img][img]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i103/ ... ber020.jpg[/img][/img]

[Disco3]

[img][img]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i103/ ... ber018.jpg[/img][/img]

[Hally]

Hey Jbell check out the post up your rovers post

Hally I have been toying with the maxi crawler gears for the transfer case, but was a bit concerned it would be too low for general four wheeling

forgot to mention that I run the 30% not the 50% rock crawler I do think the 50% would be too low for comp work