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Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:40 pm
by 83-mud-lux
Has anyone here put a coil spring on top of a leaf spring in a hilux?
I run ruf and soon to be high steer and 14" shocks but I'm having trouble making it comfortable enough.it runs a 5 leaf front pack but I was thinking of getting bundera front coils and mounting them to take the weight of the vehicle but still use the leaf springs as 'control arms' in a way.
If anyone has done this it would be great to know how well it works and if its worth the trouble.
Cheers..smiley..
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:22 am
by Blackened
I don't think anyone has ever done it...
One thing to know about leaf, it's not comfortable it will not be comfortable and you better find a good chiropractor if you do lots of corrugations.
If you want a comfortable ride go buy a commodore or something with coils, I find the ride in my hilux not too bad to be honest...
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:08 pm
by buggy man
Were you planning on cutting the leaves in half? And only having them attach at one side? Or I suppose you could have on facing foward, and the other side facing back?
It may work, but wouldn't it be just as easy to weld on a few tabs and steal some links or radius arms from another car? Or just make some ? I'm sure a full coil conversion would work better then leaves/ coils.
What about soft leaf springs and air bags? With an adjustable air system? And compressor? Run ultra soft springs, a Trac bar and the bags can take the weight, and can control ride hight, and can be adjusted when off-road, so you could drop and raise each corner of the car indipendantly. In my opinion this would be a great setup I want to do my lux, just waiting on some money haha.
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:01 pm
by brad 93hilux
You wouldn't be able to cut leafs in half and run coils. The diff would move around too much, look at the other coil spring setups, generally 5 links to Controll diff.
You can buy coil helper setups out of some of the 4x4mags I have seen but in the 7-8 years I've been around the 4wd scene I'm still yet to see one in person. If they were that good more people would have them.
Realistically you can get a reasonable ride out of leafs with the right brand/lift. If you still arnt happy do/get coil conversion or buy a 80/100series..
I did a coil conversion on rear really cheap using factory stuff (origionally) and that gave good ride and ok load carrying with efs front springs I think it is soft enough without going dedicated front/rear coils..
Just my thoughts
Brad
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2012 7:53 pm
by 83-mud-lux
i actually meant still running leaf springs all together just add a coil that makes the car taller and the coil take the harshness out of the bumps.
anyway have you ever seen a bundera front diff under a hilux?
i can get this bundera chassis real cheap so would the 3 link coil front end be fine and use the mounts/radius arms and panhard rod?
i would lose a fair bit of flex going to a 3 link as the leafs i have is great flex wise is this true?
thanks for your help much appreciated
cheers..smiley..
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2012 10:06 pm
by Blackened
83-mud-lux wrote:i actually meant still running leaf springs all together just add a coil that makes the car taller and the coil take the harshness out of the bumps.
anyway have you ever seen a bundera front diff under a hilux?
i can get this bundera chassis real cheap so would the 3 link coil front end be fine and use the mounts/radius arms and panhard rod?
i would lose a fair bit of flex going to a 3 link as the leafs i have is great flex wise is this true?
thanks for your help much appreciated
cheers..smiley..
*facepalm* to the first bit.
If you can get a bundera chassis cheap either chuck the hilux body on the chassis with new body mounts or just chuck the bundera front under the hilux getting rid of the hilux front end and keeping your current diff.
I've seen some bundera SAS's on the surfs and they flex like crazy.
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2012 6:31 am
by brad 93hilux
My reply was in regards to buggy mans comment about cutting them, yeh heaps of people have done the coil front from bundera, but I'm not sure how they go from factory or what they do to them for the flex, think standard the bundera fronts pretty restrictive.
Would be heaps easier to do coil conversion on the chassy you have then swap the body's over. You'd still modd the bundera stuff later any way, may as well set it up properly from start.
Brad
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2012 9:18 am
by SCANAS
I've seen the system on a BJ73 worked really well. Leaves are basically used to locate the axle only and only had three or four leaves in the pack. Great ride too.
Re: Coils on top of leafs in the front of a hilux?
Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:15 am
by brad 93hilux
You would have to beef up the torque rod on front and put a anti wrap bar on rear otherwise I could see with light leafs (in the place of Controll arms for coils) it would be trying to roll diff with torque..
IMOP you'd be better off just setting up coils to start with..