Outer Limits 4x4 Board

hi guys just wondering if anyone in aust is/has used the trail gear 3" leaf lift?






thanks in advance for any advice or help..cheers

I wouldn't buy a 3 inch leaf lift of any brand. as a general rule the greater the arch the stiffer the spring becomes. you sacrifice droop and up travel. Im very Happey with my OME 40mm lifted springs. with 35mm extended shackles and a bit of hammering I clear 31" tyres. If you need to clear larger tyres then that, go for a body lift. I have a LWB and chassis clearance is not a problem. If you want taller springs to flex you need to buy something longer, ie jeep springs and custom move you spring chassis mounts to make them fit. Lots of work and only someone with a bit of skill can do a good job.

yeah im tryin to clear 32" was gunna go 2" sl and 2"bl till i saw these while lookin at the crawler gears, i thought with the 3" id only have to go 1"bl but didnt think about the ride,flex qauality etc...

i might get the stock leaves reset and bushed which apperently gives approx 2",just not sure if this will flex but its within budget as ive only got about $1500 to split between gears and suspension

OME springs don't cost much at all to buy per corner. I'd be surprised if you had to spend more than 500 just for springs using your original Ubolts, shackles, shocks, but get new bushes i guess. that leaves 1000 for gears...

trail gear 6.5s from www.lowrangeoffroad.com are only 475 US or Trail Tough 4.9s for around the same price (US$535) plus around 100 US postage to east AUS....

so AU $1095 all up....that leaves 405 for a lockrite locker..... US 199 + US 70ish postage....how bout 2 lockers or 2inch BL US $109 and you'll still be under 1500

But remember to get your mates to buy some things as if you ship more than $1000 AUS into the country you'll gett slugged import duty so give your mates the money and get them to buy some bits for you to share out the load....

hmmmm not a bad idea, might have to call ome back tomoz for a better quote.sent an email to low ranger before for a price on 6:4's and im waiting for another cheap locker to come up on ol.
like the shopping list tho thanks dude its helped with some of the headaches

probly a stupid question but is there a price difference between arb kilsyth and there other stores?

no worries!.....ring up escape offroad in blackburn. I did heaps of homework and got a full OME Kit for 1000 fitted...it was 750 for OME dakar 2inch lifted springs, shocks and bushes...

try ARB Brighton as well. There name seems to pop up on this board a bit as well. I'd try at least four or five different places. If you can fit them yourself even better. I can fit my own springs now but back then wasn't confident enough hence the extra fitting cost...

fitting is fine. my mate and i did a huge ring around yesterday.he's a mechanic and thought i was talking crap bout the quotes and he thought he could do better,but should have tried more than 1 arb i think to see if there was a difference in price.

You are missing part of the point.

Spring lift does not allow you to fit a bigger tyre. Even if the tyres clear with the car on level ground, when you flex the car up on an obstacle the tyre can still move up as far as it could before so the tyres will still hit.

A 2" BL means that wherever the suspension is, you still have 2" more room for the tyre to fit.

It is also possible to space your bumpstops down to increase tyre clearance (and this allows the fitment of longer shocks, the only way to increase wheel travel)

Tall spring lifts tend to make sierras behave badly. to hold a high arch the spring rate has to be quite high so the car rides badly and doesn't flex.

A 2" body lift will almost clear 32's by itself.

PS I don't really recommend resetting stock springs. The ride will be poor and the cost will be about 1/2 of good quality springs like OME Dakar.

Steve.

Thre was a thread on here a couple of months ago someone also asking about 3" springs. The general concensus (spelling?) was that they will be a rigid a steel girder.

I don't see the point in changing to lifted springs and using your old shocks, your spring travel will be messed up to buggery. Pay the bit extra and get matching long travel shocks.

Also a little extra (its been anoying me for a while): Got some custom u-bolts made by a well known spring place for a non-suspension application; when talking about suspension lifts, he said he doesn't see the point in lifting something as light as a sierra, as it will either sag the light springs, or they will be too rigid and won't flex; he had the nerve to proceed to say if you want lift, buy a Cruiser or Patrol! WHAT A TOOL!

There is some truth to what he is saying, but I think he was just a lazy salesman, check out some footage of some Sierras, a quality suspension setup will work well, and you can get quite good flex for a budget leaf sprung vehicle.

Summarising my thoughts, don't go bigger than the (seemingly normal) 2" (~50mm) spring lift. And get the good shocks to match whatever springs you do get.

Gwagensteve wrote:You are missing part of the point.

Spring lift does not allow you to fit a bigger tyre. Even if the tyres clear with the car on level ground, when you flex the car up on an obstacle the tyre can still move up as far as it could before so the tyres will still hit.

A 2" BL means that wherever the suspension is, you still have 2" more room for the tyre to fit.

It is also possible to space your bumpstops down to increase tyre clearance (and this allows the fitment of longer shocks, the only way to increase wheel travel)

Tall spring lifts tend to make sierras behave badly. to hold a high arch the spring rate has to be quite high so the car rides badly and doesn't flex.

A 2" body lift will almost clear 32's by itself.

PS I don't really recommend resetting stock springs. The ride will be poor and the cost will be about 1/2 of good quality springs like OME Dakar.

Steve.

And to further this, by re-setting stock springs, or getting large lifted springs, you end up with a near verticle or even past verticle shackle angle, that makes ride quality and handling worse again. Stay well away.

Layto....

lay80n wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:You are missing part of the point.

Spring lift does not allow you to fit a bigger tyre. Even if the tyres clear with the car on level ground, when you flex the car up on an obstacle the tyre can still move up as far as it could before so the tyres will still hit.

A 2" BL means that wherever the suspension is, you still have 2" more room for the tyre to fit.

It is also possible to space your bumpstops down to increase tyre clearance (and this allows the fitment of longer shocks, the only way to increase wheel travel)

Tall spring lifts tend to make sierras behave badly. to hold a high arch the spring rate has to be quite high so the car rides badly and doesn't flex.

A 2" body lift will almost clear 32's by itself.

PS I don't really recommend resetting stock springs. The ride will be poor and the cost will be about 1/2 of good quality springs like OME Dakar.

Steve.

And to further this, by re-setting stock springs, or getting large lifted springs, you end up with a near verticle or even past verticle shackle angle, that makes ride quality and handling worse again. Stay well away.

Layto....

as well as risking shacke reversal and spring breakages, shackles need to be around 15deg thereabouts depending on factory spec as it forces if you will movement in the spring particularily in the early stages of the spring flexing ie on road over small bumps etc it is an integral part of the suspension set up working correctly, ride is one thing, but by forcing the system to work differently you are effectily promoting bend and snappage forward of the axle particulartily if you hit a pot hole etc

All true guys and one of the reasons why 3" springs are a problem - because they are built to "work" without bumpstop spacers and with stock length shackles they are not long enough to provide correct shackle angle at the new height to allow for a decent ride and any droop travel.

I actually think is would be possible to build a soft riding 3" lift with bumpstop spacers of about 1" and about a 1" longer shackle, but only if the leaves were made to suit (i.e a little longer)

The problem then is that the shocks would be too short to make the most of the travel in the springs and so you woudl end up on the roundabout of major changes.

Steve.

also try ARB Richmond for prices

woo hoo all sorted $750 for springs,bushes,shocks etc from richmond..
thanks heaps for all the info and input guys

Hey, might be a bit late for this now seen as it sounds as though you have your shocks sorted, but there is a cheaper option for shocks.
Check this thread out if you'd like... not gonna be as good as OME or Ranchos etc etc... but cheaper. I run them right now with 2 inch ext shackles and 40mm ome springs and 31". They work well, but are limiting my droop a bit now that i have the new springs in, but not limiting enough ATM to force me to change them.

http://carl.outerlimits4x4.com/viewtopi ... iel+shocks

By the way boys - went to Janolan in NSW on the weekend... Very muddy and slippery - will post pics soon.

I have never understood why eveyone says that lifted springs have to be stiffer .. why does the car weigh more if it is 3 inches higher ?

A lifted spring if made properly need not be any stiffer than a zero lift spring.

love_mud wrote:I have never understood why eveyone says that lifted springs have to be stiffer .. why does the car weigh more if it is 3 inches higher ?

A lifted spring if made properly need not be any stiffer than a zero lift spring.

they don't have to be but generally the cheaper ones are, as it is easier to just make them stiffer to hold the shape.

Yeah, as grimbo said, good ones are no less flexy. For eg i have found that the OME 40 mm lift is more flexy than my old stock springs. The ride is marginally stiffer, but they flex better (i dunno how that works - but it just does) I think as far as a 3 inch lift lifted sierra spring goes, cause the length of the leaf is quite short, to give it a 3 inch lift there would be quite a serious arc - especially on the front.
And generally speaking the greater the arc of a piece of metal, the less likely to flex it will be.

I know that they dont have to be, but I guess like alot of stuff on here people are simply regurgitating information they heard from a friends brothers uncle (or Greg).

love_mud wrote:I know that they dont have to be, but I guess like alot of stuff on here people are simply regurgitating information they heard from a friends brothers uncle (or Greg).

don't question the power of rumour or hearsay, the internet is build on it

i tend to just go by the mojority on these forums and take on board the advice from people who have obviosly tried different setups and different things bust all advice and feedback is welcomed weather possitive or negative

grimbo wrote:

love_mud wrote:I have never understood why eveyone says that lifted springs have to be stiffer .. why does the car weigh more if it is 3 inches higher ?

A lifted spring if made properly need not be any stiffer than a zero lift spring.

they don't have to be but generally the cheaper ones are, as it is easier to just make them stiffer to hold the shape.

No, actually I disagree, I think they do have to be stiff and here's why.

A sierra fron has 5" of travel stock, nominally 2" compression, 3" droop. that is what the spring length, shock length, and shackle length was designed for.

To run a 3" lift spring, there will be no droop travel left in the system at normal ride height, so regardless of the amount of arch the spring starts with (and it mist start with much more arch when unladen) the spring will have to be compressed to reach the stock shackle at full droop and the shock eye at full droop.

THIS is what leads to a choppy ride on 3" listed sierras.

Longer shocks can help, but unless the upper mount is movedup wards, a bumpstop spacer will hasve to be fitted, generally resulting in a small increase in total travel.

Basically, the spring length and parameters set by shackle location, axle location and shock length dictate that a sierra with 3" of all spring lift ride badly. This is true of cheap springs and even good springs like OME, if a HD spring is used in a light car as an example to get "extra" lift.

That's the beauty of RUF - you take a longer spring with a lower rate and more static arch and compress it a long way to get ride height. By changing the parameters set by the mounts etc you can fix the problem.

Steve.

how long does it take to recieve goods from low ranger approx??

It will all depend on how much you want to pay- UPS - under a week, but it costs- up to $20/kg.

What are you chasing via them? Might be worth another search or another thread to keep this one on topic, there has been heaps of stuff on lockers and gears lately if it's about them.

Steve.

im chasing the gears still,was gunna get him to throw in some leaves to but thats all sorted now thanks to arb richmond..
a friend said it might take ages for qaurantine but im pretty certain these type of items dont get quaratined..i figured about 14 days max.

I get them to send stuff USPS (US Postal service). It's cheaper and just about as quick ( about a week - Sean uses the Global Express service so it can still be tracked) plus if it's under a AUD$1000 then there is no need for a customs clearance, duty or GST.

If you ship with UPS or similar and the cost is under $1000, no duty to pay, you will have them in a week for sure.

I was recently involved in a bulk order from trail tough, heaps of stuff, 60KG or so of weight, UPS'ed in a week door to door.

We did pay about $20 on nearly 60kg and duty and I still landed a TT gearset for well under $1k.

I know some people have done as good as $750 landed.

Steve.

itl be $724.63aud landed for 6:4's and $853.63 landed with 2"bl.
1500 from piranha
1150 for noisy gears from marks wiich is gears only no seals,gaskets etc
and been told by many approx $1000 everywhere else