pics of spoa landies wanted please

[wez]

please cn you post pics od your series vehicle with spoa fitted i am thinkin of buyin a series truck and carying this mod out on along with fitting a set of range rover axles, i am a weder fabricator so the work involved is not a problem

[Astro_Al]

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

What are you hoping to achieve with that mod?

Cheers, Al.

[flatback90]

yeah that will improve the ground clearance,help the centre of gravity, improve the on road handling, really help you off road! will some one remind me why we dont all do this!!!!!!!!!!!

[nicks90]

dont mention that to the suzuki boys - they`ll get all upset...

although in there defence, they have to do spoa just to fit tyres larger than pram wheels

on a series you can fit big rubber anyway, so there isnt any point.

[FridgeFreezer]

^^^ What they said, I've not found anyone with a good reason to go SOA on a Series. It has more drawbacks than benefits.

[jericho]

There was an american chap who had a 109 soa conversion with very long flat springs so they didn't raise the vehicle significantly,but it had very supple suspension - it was all round a very nice truck.

I thought it was on Pirate that I saw it ,but cant find it now.

It was a very well know series in the states - can anyone else remember it?

[tiagoc]

coils, i believe, and disco axles (and a few other mods)

[CR88]

coils, i believe, and disco axles (and a few other mods)

elliptical springs, and the rest is ok

[jericho]

I was thinking of the 109 series 1 built by Timm Cooper,formerly of BCB landrovers.

Cummins diesel,and very nice soa conversion -

[SOA 93]

Another pic of Tim coopers 109,

SOA really does make vehicles hugely unstable, that's why land rover used it on the FC101, and the rear of the 2B FC, both good load carriers.

Toyota in their stupidity made the hugely successful Hilux SOA , idiots that they are.

I can think of 3 good reasons for SOA: 1. Better approach and departure angles

2. No spring plate protrusion hanging down

3. Increased upward axle articulation

4. Increased tyre clearance

The last leaf sprung vehicle Land Rover designed and built from scratch was the 101 FC which was SOA. All series land rovers have their suspension firmly fixed in the early 50's with their spring technology in the 40's.

Trouble is LR's series chassis does not lend itself to SOA as well as many others IMHO. The front springs are to short and the front mounts of both springs hang down to far, LR's spring packs are too thick (ancient design) meaning you'd move the centre axis of the axle too far away from spring mount on the axle, causing alot of spring wrap; Again the FC101 used 2 leaf parabolics so keeping the distance to a minimum.

Tim Coopers truck uses 5ft long Chevy truck springs on the rear and LR rear springs on the front. Axles are 101FC front and 2B FC ENV on the rear, I think the tyres were 38"

I have a SOA vapour build in the garage which is based on a new 88 chassis, front and rear spring mounts have been moved up 2" the fronts have been extended to accept Jeep YJ front springs which are 10" longer than LR fronts, the rears have been moved back 5" to increase the wheelbase, both front and rear springs are TIC paras; with hindsight I'd been better to just buy standard YJ springs for front and back.

Have a look at these sites:

http://www.azrockcrawler.com/ click on tech and look for 'building a Zuk'

http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/#springs good general info on leaf springs.

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=7572&hl is worth a read also.

http://jeepaholics.com/tech/bambar/ look for SOA conversion in the tech threads also.

I think partly because LR's stock leafs were so bad and partly because the RR's chassis was so good; LR leaf suspension never developed like it did for Jeep, Toyota, Suzuki etc. and just a change to paras was deemed the thing to do.

Don't be put off SOA, but if your going to do it, do a little more research and then do a good job of it.

Andy

[FridgeFreezer]

If you're doing SOA, especially with paras, I'd look at anti-wrap. All Series* seem to do it, although SOA would exaggerate it - in my case I'm SUA but the portals provide a similar effect of putting the centre of the wheel's rotation further away from the spring.

However, I still can't see why you'd need to do SOA unless you're fitting some huge tyres.

* = All Series with any sort of horsepower / parabolics, can't vouch for bone stock 2.25's on stock leaves but then there doesn't seem to be many of those out and playing.

[RobotMan]

I'll go along with the hop, hop BANG theory for parabolic equipped Series Landy's. I have been there myself a good few times. I'm getting low on spare 4.7:1 diff's in my shed so I think I'll have to have a go at fabbing up some kind of anti wrap this summer.

[bill van snorkle]

On a short wheelbase LandRover I see one very good reason for going spring over axle, particularly at the rear. There's a swb series 3 in my driveway sitting on Rangerover axles with coil spring conversion up front and underslung leaf springs at the rear.

The ground clearance under the rear leafspring clamp plates is pathetic and looks even worse on the wider RangeRover axles .The closer spacing of the rear springs on swb vehicles makes them more likely to get hung up on the springs on rocks and the crown area of deeply rutted tracks compared to the wider spaced,tucked up near the wheel springs on the LWB models. As Fridge pointed out, all leaf sprung LandRovers need some form of wrap control ,even more so when paras are fitted. Address that problem and a SOA conversion can be sorted without actually raising the vehicles ride height by much, particularly on Paras.The rear spring and shackle mountings can be raised several inches to restore more or less normal ride height.The result is a higher roll centre and less body roll and lean over on sideslopes. (thats why Rover went SOA on the rear of series 2B forward controls).

As with the truck in my driveway I wouldn't bother at the front end because a coil conversion is a piece of cake to do, although if one was a die hard leafspring enthusiast the front spring mountings could also be re made and flatter Paras fitted to keep the ride height at reasonable levels.

Bill.

[FridgeFreezer]

I forgot about the stupid U-bolts mine are upside-down, as they were on the Volvo my axles came from, as it seemed like a much better way of doing it.

Tonk made some spring-plate sliders that at least avoided the classic "get hung up on a tree stump" situation.

[david1701]

it might be worth doing for rock crawling i spose, but for most off roading over here its pointless methinks