Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Ok edited post as I have been talking to a mad man!
It is time to step up as I have been play'n for too long. While the setup I have absoulutely rocks for a street driven (regulary) truck I just want to fuck the spring packs off from under the diffs among other things.

I will just go an a frame rear I think and make majority of bits myself.(with some help! )

I was just wondering what people like Ruff, Pos,B.J, and Sam etc use on the chassis end of their lower control arms? It looks like ruff uses rangie stuff but is there any other option? I have two orbit eyes already so was thinking of some way to utilize them in new set up.

Also does anyone know a link to all that good info Sam has posted in regard to the vertical height between the top and bottom links and what angle to put them on etc to reduce antisquat etc.

From what I believe the spring over on the front will be the biggest headache from all of this and that should still not be to bad.???

Yep it is get serious time!!!!

hey brian wanna sell ya leafs... if so i want first dibs mate pm me if ya keen to get rid of them .... better still ill ring ya tonight

using rangie chassis mounts allows movement in all directions as well as rotation. the parts are dirt cheap to buy and the arms are easy to make.
they seem to work well, it depends on your budget. i would like to have swivelling rubber bushed arms from marks (for a daily driver) but they are expensive and the money can be used elsewhere on the truck.
petersons 4wd july 2003 has a good overview on the separation, lengths and angle for locating 4 link suspensions. the side plane pics still relate to 3 link suspensions.
try searching for three link suspension in the rover section and use strangerovers posts.???
i still have the petersons mag so if anybody is interested i can try and post the relev ant pages. its not the bible but it does help understand the principles of link susp.(antisquat,etc.)

david

Basically to understand what your are tying to achieve and more importantly how to do it, you need to read. Then read some more - until your eyes hurt and then keep reading. Maybe then you'll start to get your head around it. There is heaps of good information on pirate but there is also a lot of crap. Until you understand it all, it's hard to decifer the crap. So once you got it sorted, it's best to go back and re-read everything and you'll then get the full benefit.

ENJOY

search for sam's (AKA strange rover) posts on pirate and on here. i've read heaaaaps of his stuff, and he explains it well. the yanks can be real d*ckheads about some things

Yep reading is the go.
I have read so much now on pirate and in mags mainly. I will try and search for sams posts as I really noticed on pirate he explained things the best.

I think I may try and use my orbit eyes in the lower mounts at the chassis end.? I have been clued in on the set up for the 'A' frame

But I am still not sure what will be best as far as hight off the diff for the A frame

Prolly be a little while off but when I do it I should try and get some build pics if I remember!

Yep reading is the go.
I have read so much now on pirate and in mags mainly. I will try and search for sams posts as I really noticed on pirate he explained things the best.

I think I may try and use my orbit eyes in the lower mounts at the chassis end.? I have been clued in on the set up for the 'A' frame

But I am still not sure what will be best as far as hight off the diff for the A frame

Prolly be a little while off but when I do it I should try and get some build pics if I remember!

i'm not sure about the distance from the diff. housing to the a-frame mount.
but most people mount the lower link on the front centre of the axle housing.
then the vertical separation between the lower and upper mounts (a-frame in your case) should be %25 (1/4) of the chosen tyre diameter.
for a 36" trye the distance between the links would be 9".
good if you can fit it!!
this info is lifted from petersons 4wd but seems pretty good.
posts on pirate referring to the article recommend it as a good neutral set-up with a small amount of antisquat. (aparantly good)

david

I have been reading almost non stop for the last week and there is SOOO much shit to get through on pirate.
There is multiple conflicting views in the one thread sometimes with no end result!
From what I have read though I want a set up with only small amounts of anti sq. around 60 to 80%? Long lower control arms to combat rear steer early in the travel range, maybe bent up to keep them out of the grass and so the tyre has more chance to get up an obsticle without dragging the C.A along it
Not sure if it matters how long the a frame arms are (ie like it does in a four link?) about 70% + or - of the lower arm length.
My rig is a big heavy bitch prolly a bit high also so what should I am for as far as a set up goes?

Do treg hitches suffice on the a fram or should I make up something like 1madengineer made? (those who know him prolly only ones to answer that )
In the end I will make the upper links adjustable if I can to play around a bit i think.
I want a truck that has at least (read more!) flex as I have now but that can climb a lot better without the bouncing! And of course a better ride.
Burn away if you will!

upper arms are 75% the length of the lower arms.
eg. lowers 1200 long, uppers 900 long.
the side plain of an a-arm rear should look just like the 4 link rear side plain.
yes, pirate does do youd head insometimes.
adjustable uppers are a good idea to set pinion angle.
some ol boys use treg/poly couplings but even they are sus about the amount of wear and slop on the street.
some US guys use a large heim at the top, this is also adjustable and provides good misalignment. cheezy makes a nice a frame rear, so does calbah, but both are $$$$$$.

david

fatass75 wrote:Not sure if it matters how long the a frame arms are (ie like it does in a four link?) about 70% + or - of the lower arm length.
:

The proportion of the length of the upper to lower arms will effect how your diff rotates (ie pinion angle chance) throughout its intended travel. IMO this is not critical as it is not very often when your whole rear axle is at full droop unless you are going over a jump. So for rockcrawling where you will probably have some sort of diff restraint (centre limiting strap or retained coils) I don't believe this will be too much of an issue unless the difference in length is substantial.

There is so much that can go into a linked rear suspension design that its hard to find one perfect setup.

The petersons mag is a good general overview IMO and covers most things.

I wouldnt use a treg coupling for a street driven rig.

In terms of link components the rear of Ruffs hylux is probably the most straight forward and simplest. It uses standard range rover connections everywhere except the lower link to chassis mount where it uses the bush from the front radius arm to chassis mount. This setup does bind in the centre A frame ball but does provide a fair bit of flex (and more than enough for most rigs). It wont max out 14in travel shocks though - probably more like 12in shocks. Im using the exact same setup on my tube buggy.

Sam

Thanks heaps for your input.
I really appreciate info like this and respect the amount of time that goes into designing/working out how a linked suspension should be.

Is there any alternatives that would remain streetable for that rear upper (diff) mount that I may no have thought of?Preferably with as little binding as possible.

End of the day also is it worth going four link over three link with a wishbone style upper?

Thanks again.
Brian

brian i dont know much about this kinda mod but what about a bolt on a-frame from wizard? like the a-frame set up for the nissan GQ and GU... wood be alot easier to modify one of these then make a totally new set up woodnt it?

awwe yeah you tell me a tim to ring ya and ill ring

JAKE wrote:brian i dont know much about this kinda mod but what about a bolt on a-frame from wizard? like the a-frame set up for the nissan GQ and GU... wood be alot easier to modify one of these then make a totally new set up woodnt it?

awwe yeah you tell me a tim to ring ya and ill ring

no, the steel to for all my links including the A-frame cost me 160 bucks, is 35mm od and 5mm thick. i bought 6.5 metres which is more than enough to fawk the A-frame and make another one if you get it wrong. then toss in bushes at 140 bucks and the total for the A frame and links is 300 bucks providing you can do it yourself. I believe wizard does the A frame for 750.


NICK

I figured i might as well add my 0.02c in here as well. This is the way we built my A frame brian, and IMHO it is/was a great setup for a daily driver/street driven regularly rig.

We took a 1 inch bolt, approx 150mm long [this is from memory as the truck isn't in the driveway anymore for me to measure off ] welded the head of the bolt to a bit of tube, about 60 wide with a 70mm OD. We braced it a fair bit with 8mm plate, it was beefy as. I had sam at overkill turn me up a bush for this out of self lubricating nylon [i think], and we ran that with a crush tube as the actual diff mount. That's the bit you can see properly in the pic.

What you can't see in the pic is the 100mm piece of tube we passed the bolt through, with two poly bushes [one at each end], washers and two nuts to lock it off at the desired preload. This wasn't the best though as the poly bushes didn't last very long. To combat that you'd just need to get a similar bush turned up like the other one, to suit the ID of the 100mm piece of tube.

To this 100mm tube we then welded the diff end of the A frame to, one on each 'side' of the tube. Running this setup gave us an up and down pivot and a 360 degree pivot, no binding whatsoever. Piss easy to make, and apart from the height it drove like factory.

The lower arms were insanely long as i wanted them as flat as possible, they were solid chromoly from snake racing, with snake racing 'mogs joints' at each end.

HTH, any more q's just ask. Jeremy

jeremy, were your coils mounted inside or under the chassis?

NICK

NICK wrote:jeremy, were your coils mounted inside or under the chassis?

NICK

Under the chassis mate.

NICK wrote:jeremy, were your coils mounted inside or under the chassis?

NICK

r u startin 2 wish that u outboarded yours more ??

This is a good point, as on my truck it would seem very hard to mount the rear coils under the chassis, let alone outboard. I think the only way you could do this is to have a super high truck. I think I would have to put mine just inside the chassis rails
I am yet to decide wether swaping a 60/80 series diff into it would be a better option to get extra width without spacers.

Hey Jeremy have you got anymore pics of your rig?

60 series diffs will give ya an extra 3.5inches in width..... and i think 80 series diffs will give ya nearly 5 inches in extra width

fatass75 wrote:This is a good point, as on my truck it would seem very hard to mount the rear coils under the chassis, let alone outboard. I think the only way you could do this is to have a super high truck. I think I would have to put mine just inside the chassis rails
I am yet to decide wether swaping a 60/80 series diff into it would be a better option to get extra width without spacers.

Hey Jeremy have you got anymore pics of your rig?

Tunable swaybar will help prevent body roll. Easy to make, just use the currie unit from the states as a guide. Torsion bar from a small to medium 4by, and the chassis/wishbones mounts for the indexed sections and fab from there.

fatass75 wrote:Hey Jeremy have you got anymore pics of your rig?

I certianly do.... what do you wanna see ?

pm'd ya dude!