Front suspension modificaton: Balljoint spacers/flip

[DougH]

I was wondering if I was one of only a few messing around with this.

I decided a while back while taking the front suspension apart to do cv axles, that I would flip the location of my balljoints.

With a GenII paj the balljoint normally drops into the hole in the a-arm from above. With the flip you swap the balljoint to the bottom of the a-arm... and bolt it in that position.

It gives you a bunch of space between the upper bumpstops, cut or not.

I have more travel with low profiles and the flip, than I did stock with no lift. So I could keep it this way and have decent front travel for ifs, or I could lift it even more and still have the same travel with an inch or more lift. I would have to reindex the torrsion bars though, I have run out of adjustment.

The main issue, as point out on the 4x4wire, is that the stock position leaves a fail safe if the bolts sheer... the balljoint is retained by the hole in the a-arm.

I dont deny that the design above the arm is stronger, but I dont believe that either vehicles would be controllable if the bolts sheered.

I am trying to work out a way to improve the saftey of the design. The balljoints have three protrusions on the top. If they were milled off the balljoint would be flat, and would have better contact with the arm. This would also allow for a flat machined spacer to be used on top of the balljoint.

I have also considered drilling the balljoint body and a-arm to add one or two more bolts.

Anyways, if you sheer 3 proper grade bolts... all at once... your screwed anyways.

[redrocket]

did you know that i had done it?

[Bitsamissin]

I agree Dougie, I've thought long and hard about this mod and have decided not to do it.
The main reason for me was for durability with a front locker, the CV's are working at greater angles with the balljoint flip/spacer and with the swaybar disconnected and a front locker could just be the recipe for regular CV destruction.
No one that I know of has run this configuration so it is just theory at the moment.
In regards to safety if the bolts sheer, I spose it's a possibility but you would have to be damn unlucky to sheer 3 high tensile M8 bolts.
I'm sure you could beef up the mounting arrangement.
But when you consider how many have done this mod (Troopers, 4 Runners etc) and the failure rate there doesn't seem to be any major drama's.
I've only heard of one failure and that was offroad after a big hit.

[DougH]

Well I have ran it for a couple months before the truck went down.

It survived through two pretty tough beatings. Once when I beat the truck hard enough to bend a tie rod like a pretzel and then break it, and another time when a blew a tire off its bead.

I havent had any cv issues though, but if I do I will let you know.

[DougH]

Here is something else that I forgot to share with you guys. I am trying to have a safety retainer built that will go along with the balljoint flip.

Basically it is a retainer that slips over the balljoint from bellow, in the same way that the stock location retains the balljoint from bellow.

It would help support the balljoint more, and retain it in the event of bolt failure.

If I get a chance I will scan some of my drawings.

[rocknferoza]

Hey guys

I've got a Daihatsu Feroza with 40mm lift on the torsion bars. I'm just off the bump stops and I know that if I trim them that i can get an extra 20mm of lift.

I'd like 2 know more about the balljoint spacers/flip?

If I did the spacers/flip how much more can i go on the torsion bars and how much more travel will I gain doing this mod?

How easy would it be 2 do the flip?

Any other imfo or tips would be handy

Thanx

[Bitsamissin]

OK I haven't seen the set up of an IFS Feroza so I really can't comment.
I've elected not to do it on my Paj as I will be running a 2.5-3" lift as it is and will have a front Detroit locker so I don't want to stress the CV's anymore than I have to.
But it is a worthwhile mod if your still and intend to remain open at the front. Doing a balljoint flip on a Gen 2 Paj is pretty straight forward it's just a matter of separating and mounting the upper balljoints on top of each wishbone instead of on the underside of it. I spose it will allow you to crank the torsion bars another 20mm or so or leave it at that height and have more wheel travel. Some guys incorporate a spacer in between the wishbone and the balljoint mount to further increase this effect. There has also been a lot of talk on the safety aspects of these mods. On a Paj there are 3 M8 balljoint mounting bolts, if they sheer the spindle part of the balljoint is still retained by the hole in the wishbone. If you have done this mod and this happens there is nothing supporting the balljoint and you will loose your steering and the wheel could collapse.
DougH has done just the balljoint flip and Red Rocket (Mike) has done the balljoint flip with the spacer so you can ask them about their experiences.

[nh_pajero]

I have just done the flip with a spacer now the camber is out BAD.
Is this normal?

[-Scott-]

I have just done the flip with a spacer now the camber is out BAD.
Is this normal?

Yes.

[nh_pajero]

Thanks Scott.

[NJV6]

It goes 'knock kneed' \ / due to the angle that the top ball joint goes through the top arm. And a spacer just amplifies it.

You need shims, or washers and a few of them. Undo (or loosen) the nuts that hold the top arm in place and drop them in between the tower and arm. There will already be one or two in there.

Be warned those bolts are REALLY tight and to get one undone requires taking the top shock mount off and pushing shock down (or out of the way)

[DougH]

I would recommend not doing it at all. It screws with the steering geometry. Once I did it on the old truck it started spitting out tierods and bending idler arms at an expensive rate.

The new truck will not be getting this done unless away of keeping idler arms from bending can be thought up.

[matwelli]

I was under the assumption that the ball joint flip was done when you cranked the front up 2" to counter the wheels going / \ due to the top arm being shorter than the bottom, and that the flip would help fix the situation and get the front wheels more verticle.

The problems with knock-ned front wheels \ / does this only happen if you do the flip without the lift ? same with the idler arm problem.

Whats the reason behind doing the flip without the lift ?, you can trim the lower bumpstops for more down travelwithout the flip.

[hairy one]

I have just done the flip with a spacer now the camber is out BAD.
Is this normal?

The camber would be out bad even if you wound the torsion bars up.

The tritons have an adaptor (kind of like a C channel) that extends the lenght of the King pin but the pagero doesn't / isn't able to hae this. There fore the spacer is used.

Any one out there is famililar with the Mitshi range of King pins . These would be a better safer alternative to a spacer.
I haven't looked but whatis the part height of the king pins over the range.

I'll work on the assumption that the Diffs are "reasonably" interchangable so will be reasonably close for the bearings at the 1/2 shafts.

[Glennb]

I would recommend not doing it at all. It screws with the steering geometry. Once I did it on the old truck it started spitting out tierods and bending idler arms at an expensive rate.

The new truck will not be getting this done unless away of keeping idler arms from bending can be thought up.

Are you saying you wouldnt do the flip at all or flip with spacer or both?? I was just thinking of doing the ball joint flip but if its going to cause other problems I think Ill give it a miss.

[DougH]

Are you saying you wouldnt do the flip at all or flip with spacer or both?? I was just thinking of doing the ball joint flip but if its going to cause other problems I think Ill give it a miss.

I wouldn't do either of the above. Your welcome to try it, my abusive style of driving may have been a bigger factor in the bending of parts, but I have a suspicion that the balljoint flip attributed to it.

If you start bending stuff too, then we will know that it wasn't my driving.

[hairy one]

Doug
How big was the spacer & how much difference did it actually make to the vehicle capability.

or did you only use it for the lift factor.

[matwelli]

whats the thoughts on doing the ball joint flip, with a spacer thick enough to give a total drop of say 25mm, then putting a 25mm spacer between the lower a-arm and the (dont know the proper name) piece of cast metal that attaches the lower ball joint.

Would effectively raise the front end, not change the alignment and give the lower a-arm an extra 25mm clearance at the outer end.

Would have to check if the outer CV still clears the a-arm.

Then to get a 50mm lift, would only need to crank the torsions 25mm, still not greatly affecting the alignment, and the top and bottom arms are still in correct alignment.

[-Scott-]

It will still throw out the steering arm relationship to the control arms, which is where bump steer starts to become a problem. And the driveshafts will be running at a different angle to the control arms, which may introduce more problems during suspension cycling. Currently, control arms, steering arm and driveshaft are all roughly parallel - that's not by accident.

There was talk of flipping the steering ball joint too, primarily to eliminate binding, but that would require cutting a new taper into the steering knuckle.

All other issues aside, the balljoint flip means means the upper balljoint is no longer captive in the upper control arm, and is only held in place by bolts. If something happens to those bolts, for whatever reason, the entire hub assembly can break loose. I've seen pics of it happening at low speed - I would hate to see what happens at high speed.

Cheers,

Scott

[NJV6]

For me - I did the Ball joint flip to gain my down travel back that I had lost due to lifting. I do not have the vehicle overly high - just right for 33's.

I did not have the flip and had just trimmed my upper bumpstops but there wasn't a lot of travel left to be honest.

SO I did the flip and drilled out the holes to 10mm bolts. The camber was then way out - It didn't drive so well on the road......

2 shims on each bolt (4 each side) is what I used to recitify the problem - it now steers pretty good again, and looks right.

To have a spacer in would mean at least a couple more shims, longer bolts which hold the top arm to the chassis, and I am not sure at which stage the shocks run out of travel.

As an added benefit I didn't anticipate is the better ride off road on bigger bumps from the added down travel - less thumping as the suspension top's out. If you were going to do the flip without the lift it would be purely for wheel travel.

NJ

[cookie monster]

i think if you are going to do the flip then it should be to regain the down travel that is lost from raising the front end. i think it would put too much angle on the drive shafts etc. to me the added down travel would be the best solution.
i also think you would have to be wheeling pritty hard and often to shear 10mm high tensile bolts. i would change them at every service anyway, just for piece of mind. i know of a guy that has done the flip and wheeled pritty hard, with no ill effects(yet?).
cookie monster

[Reddo]

Interesting thread. On a related matter, how do the CVs hold up to abuse?

Having had ours out to replace boots, they look awefully small and quite fragile. Anyone broken one?

I imagine the extra angle from lift and ball joint flip won't help CV life as they have a limited amount of travel to start with - hence poor Paj turning circle.

[-Scott-]

Which model Paj do you have? Earlier models had smaller CVs which were more likely to break, but the larger CVs in the V6 are much more reliable.

I'm not aware of issues due to the CVs running out of travel - anybody know the limit?

[Bitsamissin]

Yep it's around 29 degrees.
There is a long travel Toyo kit available in the US (for Baja type racing) that you can specify with Porsche 936 CV's which are rated at over 500Nm and working angles up to 45 degrees.
When I had mine cranked up to almost 3" the CV shafts sat at around 15 degrees and I never broke any (even with the Detroit) but had the splitting boot syndrome not long after lifting the front. I tried a couple of aftermarket boots but they didn't last until I replaced them all with factory boots and didn't have any probs for almost 2 years before the SAS.
One trick is to regularly lubricate the boots with silicone spray or armour all to keep them supple.
The IFS CV's are about the same size as a Hilux live axle CV (except the Lux axle is thicker).
They are reasonably strong and not prone to breaking (even with lifts/front locker) but there have been casualties. A lot depends on driving style as well.
The most likely breakage will be the left hand CV/axle as it is shorter and connected directly to the front diff. The right side CV's are driven via an internal axle located in the diff tube so the load is spread over a longer length.

[klrevo]

heres some damage shots from the ;left hand front cv i shattered. Wasnt doing anything full on, wasnt really wheeling actually, took the "shortcut" to work one day, little step, bit of steer, bit of pep, and BANG. i was quite surprised, it didnt help that i then unlocked the wrong hub

dean

[Reddo]

ewe, what a mess!

Interesting that the standard CVs hold up so well, must be cause of the design. ie having a strong housing/outer, and with the ball cage being sunk so far into the housing.

....cause, the units look a lot smaller than others, and the axle size is truly mini-me by comparison to other vehicles!

After seeing ours I scrapped any ideas of running 35's or cranking up the torsion bars further. Now thinking SAS is the way to go to get any significant gains on the Paj front-end.

[J Top]

Beadlocked 35" Mudzillas with flip and Manual trans, quite reliable 3litre
35" mudzillas with flip and Manual trans, no probs yet 3500
J Top

[known 2]

is this a job u should atempt by urself or is it best left to a profesional 4wd mechanic who knows pajero's.

is there any other way of gaining 3i of lift out of the front?

[wangapajero]

Guys,
Any advice on the merits of this would be appreciated (have new EFS torsions fitted)...

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... 34692//url