rangie diffs on series?

[grundomat]

hi all, i am building up a series with rangie diffs, (4 wheel disk brake conversion, maxidrives, 6 1/2 inches wider = stability), have fitted parabolics to try and stay leaf sprung. My problem is that if i go spring over, the top of the tub is at my shoulder (i'm 6 foot tall) and that's with the series wheels, not the 35's i want to fit. if i go spring under, the draglink that travels under the pumpkin on the rangie diffs fouls on the leaves. any suggestions? i am trying to get full reg in vic, already need engineers, but not sure if they will pass a bent drag link so that it clears?

by the way if anyone has a ute cabin they want to sell me PLEASE let me know, my project is an 88" but i want to put a ute cabin and tray on it.

thaks for any suggestions.
Matt

[bigbad]

would a tie rod clear if it was in front of the axle, you could use a LHD swivel housing and make a bar to run between them

[Slunnie]

Toyota axles sound easier.

LC60 axles are excellent to go into Series Landys, especially if you want big tyres. The diff is bigger, but they're also a lot stronger. They're 4.1's though.

edit, I wouldn't even consider an 88" SOA on 35's.

[grundomat]

yeah, thanks slunnie, i had thought that about tojo axles, just hoping to use the rangie ones because i already have them, and i want to keep some rover parts in there somewhere, already have 75 series gearbox and transfer, plus hot little 253. why wouldn't you consider 88" on 35's? and what is SOA? please excuse my ignorance, still learning

cheerz

[Braudy]

SOA = spring over axle .

Acronyms can be a complete pain when you are new to some thing.

Cheers

[Taff]

why wouldn't you consider 88" on 35's?

very short and very high. depends what your driving i guess.... wouldn't want to be going down or up very steep stuff.

[Slunnie]

Thats exactly it. This is a V8 88" chassis on hilux axles with 38" tyres worn down to about 36". The reason it wouldn't work is because it needed a stronger gearbox LT95 in my case, LC in your case and the rear propshaft would have been about 30cm long and about 45 degrees - literally. It'd flip everytime you took off from a set of lights or slowed down for a stop sign.


To make it work I pushed the rear out to produce a 100" wheelbase, linked off the lower leaf spring perch and added a cross member to mount a Rangie A frame then mocked spring perches. The chassis was also docked off at the rear. This will have worked, and was setup with X-over steering connected to the series steering relay via an arm I fabricated.



I ended up changing directions with it all but it would have been frightening to drive still in my opinion. I ended up changing to V8 109" SUA (Sprung under) with Landcruiser axles and 37's so that it would be stable and strong. and in the process fixed all of the problems and did differently all of the things that I would have done differently. The tyres rub behind the headlights, so I'm looking at a plan B.



Also, it may be worth checking out IsuzuRovers thread on modifying Series leaf spring packs for flex. The seem to outflex Parabolics by a fair bit if thats what you're after.

Something else to keep in mind is gearing. The Tojo gearbox will be expecting a set of 4.1 diffs for 31" tyres. 35's will be about 4.3 or similar, but the rangie axles have 3.54's.

[grundomat]

ok, thanks all for your input, i should have done a bit more research before i started the build. Starting to think that maybe the 88" is a bad idea... looking at other options, (i really want to stay with series body), how hard would it be to fit a series ute cabin onto a rangie chassis? keeping all suspension and brakes, etc, but fit my engine and gearbox that i have built, then fit ute cabin over the top, and tray on back, after trimming back end off chassis to get the departure angle up? has anyone tried this before? rangie classic rolling chassis is easy to get fairly cheap.

thanks again guys

Matt

[cpmurray]

Matt,
Here is a picture of a mates 88" series 3 with 38 boggers.
He has extended the wheel base and converted it to coil springs with a rangie front axle, and a 110 salisbury rear.