I'm thinking about cranking my rear trailing arms to acount for the lift and extra articulation

I was wondering if anyone has had any success cranking their own arms

I've got a hydraulic pipe bender and i reckon i can get it close enough to the end of the arm

I am planning on welding a strip of 1" angle down the underside of the arm to strenghten it as well

How much is this likely to affect the wheelbase ? and will it cause a problem ?

when you crank them you need to add some length or you will shorten the wheel base.

I have seen some home made ones that were effective and the correct length not as pretty but what does that mater as long as they do the job

I've bent my own to allow for a 3" lift , this shortened the arm by 4mm.

By landrover standards thats probabley within the tolerences they were originally built to.

You can space them out at the chassis bush by a few mm with some washers if required.

Not as much as i thought

It shouldn't really affect the axle too much then, just pull the diff nose up slightly


The next question is how much do i bend it

The arm is currently sitting at 10 degrees to the bush (unladen on flat road), so i presume i need to bend it by 10 degrees ?

I'd just take one off at a time and bend it untill the chassis bush is "unstressed".

I've done mine so that the bush is stressed upwards at ride height, so that the bush is at maximum compression at full bump.

Thanks for the replies


I gave it a try on some scrap arms i had and with a 10 degree bend, there is very little difference in length





Just got to get some tidy arms and bend a pair up now

Slightly OT but do cranked arms really make much difference? OK I can see the point if you want to tuck them up out the way for rock crawling but wrt articulation I'm still limited on droop by the shocks, not but trailing arm bushes.

There's always going to be one component of the suspension system that limits your travel Trev.



As a minimum, the cranked arms will give the bushes a longer life.

stronger arms that are cranked are worthwhile
Jez's or similar I'd recommend

Axle articulation was being limited by the bush, and the bush is permanently stressed on the road, so it's going to reduce the life

I'll be fitting the new arms once the shops open so i can get some nuts and i'll post a few pics to show the affect they have on the bush

In normal road use the bush was always being stressed due to the lift



So the cranked arm removes the stress placed on the bush





This will also allow the arm (and hance axle) to move further downwards

Dave, I can certainly see your reasoning for wanting to unstress the bush & that seems sound. To improve the angle of the diff pinion to the drive shaft, as I see it you need to do a bit of what you've done with the bottom arms, ie shorten them & a bit of the opposite with the A frame, ie lengthen it, thus rotating the axle slightly. I think I've seen on pirate4x4 a spacer for the a frame to ball joint mount which both effectively lengthened the A frame & lowered the ball joint, but I guess that was on a much more extreme set up than you've got. I'm really just thinking out loud here & wonder at what point changing the diff angle becomes desirable?
Your trucks looking good by the way, getting better all the time.
Cheers, Steve.

How about this for an expertly cranked trailing arm?



Beautiful job

Dave and bog monster can you pm me your videos If you think they will help when I do mine this weekend?

Tris

Jez (& Stig) do make rather a neat job of it:

how much do they cost fridge?

a pound less than the ones in the photo