(for interest sake i drive a 1996 f310 wt)
a trip was proposed to me from my future father in law to drive up to 1770 and back from brisbane over the last weekend. (the trip was approx 1500kms with the off road route we took) The tyres, and suspension had remained stock so i decided to upgrade 3 days before. i picked up some second hand mud tyres for $220 that had about 90% tread (235/75r15's so they would still fit the standard rims). so the tyres were sorted.
For the suspension i chose 40mm extended maxi trac heavy duty leaf springs. i know you may all cringe at heavy duty springs however i customized the leaf packs which makes them slightly heavier than normal so the back didn't drop too much with the camping gear yet unloaded is still comfortable, even over corrugations.
The leaf modifications were:
-Clamp leaf pack and remove centre locating bolt.
-remove clamp and separate the pack making sure to keep the springs in order
-discard the second leaf (second from the top)
- swap the bottom leaf spring for bottom leaf from the standard pack
the leafs were done and gave the vehicle a ride height (at the guard) of 79.6cm.
For shock absorbers i went to repco and foraged through their shelves (helps having friends there) and found any shock absorbers that fitted the compression and extension requirements. i found that falcon ute rear shock absorbers have about 45mm more length and fit the compression length too. They are only slightly firmer than the standard ones and are still very comfortable. The rear brake hose was removed and extended about 70mm to give me more length (with some spare for later
) Due to the different leaf settings i got about 3.5cm more droop out of the rear suspension.For the front suspension i did the shameful thing and removed the sway bar and wound the suspension up to 78.7cm. I also shaved about 5mm off the bump stops and checked the cv angles were still acceptable. because i wound the torsion bars up on the front it made it stiffer, helping to negate the effects of removing the sway bar.
all up i think the suspension upgrade was extremely effective for the cost. the front suspension is not an effective solution but will be solved soon enough.
all up costs were
-springs $92 each
-shock absorbers $88 pair
- tyres $220
-brake hose extension $40
this comes to a total of $532 for parts (not including my labor time
)i don't have photos of the trip at the moment (left my other camera in gympie at the in laws place) however i took some this arvo of the car flexing.
the rear suspension flexes to 46cm before the front wheel lifts off the ground.
I did not come away unscathed from the trip however, my sometimes noisey gearbox is now very noisey. The car has heated up afew times so i fitted a electric fan and made a shroud. this fixed the problem around town significantly however after plowing through soft sand for 30km at 15km/h at midday overheated the roza twice. The radiator seems to be the weakest link, when i turned the heater on it stayed cool the rest of the time. I will be making a better fan shroud to fit a 16" fan in the coming weeks. I have ordered a new genuine radiator for VERY CHEAP ( retail is about $580 and im getting it for $362, cost price from work). The gearbox is also getting an overhaul and the motor too as it used almost 3L of oil in the trip
genuine radiator is $362 (ex japan however)
all bearings, synchro rings and seals for the gearbox is $450 aprox (some japan, some sydney)
and the motor rebuild kit is yet to be announced (still deciding to what extent as a turbo will be hanging off the side of it)
anyways i think thats about the extent of my information i can give for the roza at the moment. (i may post some pics of the trip too if anyone is interested. we didnt get too many great ones as we were too busy driving over things to take photos)
