ball joint spacer and front diff spacer

[mrpham]

Hi there,

Did some read on the forums about ball joint spacers, I would love to get some more down travel in my Feroza! So I'm planning to get 1" or 1.5" BJ spacers made, my friend is a fitter and turner .

This is will give me the extra droop, but now the problem of CV angles arises... So would it be possible to make a spacer to space the front diff a bit lower? If it is possible, then there is a chance a drive shaft (transfer to front diff) spacer will be needed?

I know a few people on the forums have thought about this idea, but have only found one person who has actually done the mod:

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh10 ... 7588d7.jpg

What are your thoughts?

[MightyMouse]

Ball joint spacers dont give you any extra travel, what they do is increase the ride height without adjusting the torsion bars to the point where droop is lost.

This in practice means that you don't loose all your droop travel to get the extra tyre clearance required for 30"+ tires AND gives you a bit more clearance under the front diff. Body lift only gives you vertical tyre clearance for the body.

You need to space the bottom AND top ball joints the same amount otherwise you going to do terrible things to the camber when the suspensions deflected wich will drastically affect cornering.

The only ways to get more travel are to make longer control arms, or remove arm rotation limitations - both of which aren't small tasks if you want big changes ( shaved droop bump stop helps a little ).

There are limits to spacers as well as the outer CV clashes with the bottom ball joint if taken too far.

Spacing the diff down is counterproductive, your fixing one clearance issue and creating another. If its for pose value then go ahead but if you actually want off road capability its not clever.

I've got 20mm balljoint down spacing 50% longer control arms and about 20 degrees more arm angle rotation - however its done with different control arms and chassis geometry rather than individual bits.

Its an issue of compound changes rather than a single solution

[mrpham]

Thanks MightyMouse!

I was under the impression that a ball joint spacer regains the lost down travel from winding the torsion bars. By moving the top control arm further away from the top bump stop. This way it's possible for people to wind their torsion bars 40mm and then use a 40mm spacer, etc...

This is slightly OT, but I read that you've done a 'wedge' body lift. This involves 2" lift at the front and 1" at the rear, would I simply use a 1.5" spacer in the middle section. I actually don't even know if there is a 'middle-section' body spacer on Ferozas!

[MightyMouse]

Ball joint spacers enables you to distribute the travel more evenly ( I suppose regain is as good a description as any ) You have the same overall amount but can get equal bump and droop if that's what your after. The commonly used "wind up the bars" approach does remove your droop travel and gives you lots of bump - not a great compromize off road, especially when cresting off camber.

So spacers are the way to go imo where possible

Spacers help by lifting without torsion bar adjusting, I'm not certain what the upper limit would be - but 40mm at the outer end of the ball joint could well be impossible from memory. Spacing the inner end down or monting under the arm may well allow that much lift but you would need to investigate really carefully. A bit of both could be the answer.

There are five bodymounts / side on a Feroza so you need to do some basic ratio calculations to get the intermediate spacers the right height. Refer to the Feroza manual and you will gwet the distances involved and a few minutes with a calculator will give you the numbers.

[mrpham]

So I finally had my ball joint spacers made:

http://coemaudio.com.au/john/balljointspacer01.JPG
http://coemaudio.com.au/john/balljointspacer02.JPG

After doing some research and looking at 'commercial' kits, mostly for Toyotas though, I decided to get it made out of 6061 aluminium and used grade 12.9 M8 bolts. It is important to torque the nut/bolt to around 26-32ft/lbs and either use loctite or a nylock to make sure the inner nut doesn't loosen. I used antiseize on the inner nut and nylocks were used to lock it in.

Some commercial kits:
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/Bal ... acer.shtml
http://www.sonoransteel.com/san_diego_o ... ions_.html

If I were to make some new ones, I would machine out a bit at the bottom so water could drain out. ah well... maybe next time.

The ride is a bit better now, and I've regained some down travel that I lost from the wound torsion bars. This mod won't give more height or clearance, all it does it affect down travel.

Also had to get wheel allignment done to reset the camber.

[MightyMouse]

Umm - where's the pics of the one that actually does the work - the bottom spacer - you did space the bottom as well ?.

If the answers no - they you havn't achieved anything. The top spacer simply corrects for the geometry change caused by the bottom spacer.

If you had to correct camber it makes me wonder. Equal height top and bottom spacers have no effect on the suspension geometry.

Don't stress re the bolts, you have overkilled ( which is't bad... ) all the load on the joint is in bump which places virtually no load on the bolts.

The top arm is only there to locate the upright anyway, all the load is on the bottom arm.

The only time there is any load on the bolts is rebound and then its only the weight of the wheel not the car.

You have about 10,000% safety margin

You must be running narrower wheels or negatice offset as those protruding bolts would hit on my wheels.

[mrpham]

I know that a few people space both top and bottom, to regain down travel but also increase height. But from what I've found (via google ) is that most people just space the top ball joint to regain lost down travel (from wound up torsion bars).

Most people that do ball joint spacers are for Toyotas, so I just followed what they did on their setup . I also talked to a guy on these forums who also spaced his top ball joint and had good results.

My camber/alligment was correct before I did this, had it done when my suspension and wheels/tyres were installed. After doing the ball joint spacer, the camber was positive so had to drop it off at wheel shop to get it reset.

[mrpham]

You must be running narrower wheels or negatice offset as those protruding bolts would hit on my wheels.

I'm currently running 12.5" wide tyres on -23 offset wheels. Isn't causing any problems and there's a fair bit of clearance.

This will probably be the last mod I'll do to my Feroza, funds will now be directed to my future Sierra

[MightyMouse]

I really can't see how this works then.

The vehicle sits on the bottom ball joint and A arm - thats where the torsion bar is attached.

The distance between the ground and the lower balljoint / arm hasn't changed

The distance between the bottom balljoint and the stub axle can't be changed

The top arm is for location only, it doesnt carry the vehicle - a spacer would can only move the top arm up, there is no mechanism to apply downwards force and change the ride height.

THis would show up as a camber change exactly as you have indicated.

Where does the lift actually come from ?

As per wheels I runing zero offset so that explains that - I'm trying to control scrub radius issues and prefer to keep the centre of load centred on the bearings.

[mrpham]

I think you may have misread my earlier posts, didn't do this mod to increase height. I only did it to 'regain' some down travel that was lost when torsion bars were wound.

After I 'lifted' the front by winding torsion bars, down travel was reduced by heaps. So by spacing the top control arm further up, it moves the top bump stops further away from the chassis bump stop thing.

I haven't created more down travel, just regained it.

The ride is a bit better now, and I've regained some down travel that I lost from the wound torsion bars. This mod won't give more height or clearance, all it does it affect down travel.

[MightyMouse]

Ah yes I see exactly where we're getting crossed up now - my apologies.

I assumed ( wrongly ) that you were after height and completely misinterpreted the rest.

And that also makes sense with the camber, however IMO it would actually help the handling as it will pull the top of the tire in under load transfer during cornering, keeping the tires contact patch more firmly on the road - but at the expense of slightly more tire wear.