suspension

[pux]

Hi guy's hope all is well ok well spoke with the new boss (aka wife from saturday) and she has said i can do me suspesion. What i do not want to do is change the ride height from normal so would this work for better articulation.

procomp +2 allround

extended bump stops

extended brake lines

and dislocation cones

Any help and tips greatfully recieved

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Hi guy's hope all is well ok well spoke with the new boss (aka wife from saturday) and she has said i can do me suspesion. What i do not want to do is change the ride height from normal so would this work for better articulation.

procomp +2 allround

extended bump stops

extended brake lines

and dislocation cones

Any help and tips greatfully recieved

Do a search on mine and I think JSTs suspension mods, and others.............

With no increase in ride height (as per mine) then you'll find wheel boxes are too low

Extending the bumpstops restricts full axle twist / movement / up / down flex

You'll need to see if your springs are too hard etc Trev (LR90_ website has a whizzy bit of kit

Expect a load of research to get what you wnat, coupled with compromise both from a parts and financial point a view

Read as much as you can on the various links on this site as well

Nige

[David_LLAMA4x4]

Hi guy's hope all is well ok well spoke with the new boss (aka wife from saturday) and she has said i can do me suspesion. What i do not want to do is change the ride height from normal so would this work for better articulation.

procomp +2 allround

extended bump stops

extended brake lines

and dislocation cones

Any help and tips greatfully recieved

I need to be careful here or the Spam Police will have me in cuffs

I believe there are better shocks for the job on the market for a similar price ( then again I would wouldn't i? )

No need to extend the bumpstops with +2" shocks, all that will do is lose what you have gained up as much as you have gained down. +2" shocks are safe on std length bumpstops, or at least my Rough Country ones are.

Make sure the hoses you buy are not just 2" longer than std. - this will be very close to not long enough on full cross axle at the front as the wheel will drop nearer to 3.5 or 4 inches with +2" shocks on crossaxle.

You will only need dislocation cones on the rear. the front will almost certainly not dislocate with +2" shocks unless you have some strange short / stiff springs fitted.

Hope this is some help. PM if you want more of my biased views but please keep it off the public forum so I stay out of trouble

David

[pux]

David you have a pm!!!!

[nige90]

I'm also loking into suspension mods and am at Information Overload point.

The options and opinions are huge.

However, Nige (HFH) I'm quite impressed with what you've done to get this far

(see vid on opening post)

HFHpost

What have you actually done at this point ???

And David, I was talking to a local chap today who is planning to swap his

Procomps for the "better shocks for the job on the market for a similar price"

are we allowed to say what they are .

At the risk of hijacking Pux's thread I've also sent a PM !

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Ok

That was a later post, I am sure there are a number of posts I did as I worked to this one.

Basically I have drawn a line on any further mods on the suspension.

The reasons are :

1- Insurance Co - at the mo they have every mod listed and are OK with it, 3 link they were less keen on, and sensibly they did point to the engine as 1 of the reasons

2- Having spoken with people who have actually GOT or USED a 3 link many said the same thing, that they are ok for road use, but "Interesting" and the more you play with the loud pedal the more interesting things become, with the engine I have I had visions of enjoying the local scenery "Literally" if I went 3 link.

I already with the soft springs I have find I have massive torque steer on acceleration, don't fancy any more thank you, putting the power hard on and then off again gets a real squirm as is...... 3 link er maybe not methinks. Also most if not all of the nmarket ones apart from concerns on quality actaully reduce clearance !...and also are bottom link mounted which is prob not the best way to 3 link, to my knowledge no-one markets a 3 link top mounted ?

3- Spares.

I got rid of my old Hybrid cos the fabrication of so much was handmade, as a result damage and breakages meant huge workloads and time. the new 90 although modified still uses a combo of mainly off the shelf parts, and a few special fabbed bits, but these are unlikely to break, and even if they did limited time to refab

4- How much is enough ?.....the further you go the more complex your problems, as such I have had a few, but got around them, more means newer and more probs, and prob also more wear starin etc, so I have sort of moved on....

5- Height - My 90 HAS to go into my garage, so I have a limit on height, which was one consideration for the mods so far, thwe other is HUGE lifts etc add more wobble and the COG gets worse, so with all the mods I had to ensure it would still fit into the garage / workshop Lift can also add bumpsteer probs and Propshaft probs too

6 - Costs.

Some of the bought stuff is truly expensive C**p, the 3 links I looked at were terrible, and these were not exactly cheap, but the welding was dire, excuses or not dire, as many commented on.

As such I decided that not only was the build quality of the kits on the market poor - in both terms of welds and often metal choice, - etc thickness, and general poor quality that I wouldn't trust nor buy them.

That means me making them, and frankly at that time and maybe now I have other calls on my time, and I do now wnat to end up with a "Vapour Truck"

7 - Compromise.

Everyone here on this forum will hit a point of compromise, either money, time, DIY vs Have it done for you, complexity, insurance you name it there are a number of variables,

I decided to compromise after I had tested it out off road, was fairly pleased, and since then have RTI'd it at Challengers 4x4s twist off where I won against some very expensive bought kits, which brings me to me last point. Of the shelf kits are not better the more they cost, some of the very expensive ones are NOT clever, springs that sag, wobble and pounadges that give lift but little flex = poor COG and terrifying handling off road. Some of the simple well thought out off the shelf kits affer exellent VFM, as I have never actually used nor OWNED any of them I do not feel qualified to comment on which are better - but many here can or will be able to help. On the twist off day I came in (suprisingly for my thoughts) fairly balanced at around 920+ ish front and 950+ ish back, I did think the front would be far worse than the rear, so that was nice to find out.

8 - Off road kits off the shelf. Many are quite good, and if you do NOT want to spend huge amounts of time and effort designing and pi****g about underneath for ages and ages possibly wasting money as you learn, then the kits you can just "Buy and Fit" or "Buy and have fitted" are damned good.

As said earlier - Some are better than others, and some are frankly overpriced and 'not very good', others here can comment from actual ownership and use, which is frankly the only advice you can take, as oppossed to "I have read or ...I think my mate of a mate had a cat that said to another cat that said to it owner" syndrome ...........

So re all the above what I did.

I used LR90s spring calc - .................a lot

I weighed my 90 both the whole truck,

then front only then rear only,

and played with the claculator to guess the spring height and poundages,

a few efforts eventually gave me what I have now, which may NOT be any use for another truck with differing weights and weight distributions, you HAVE to do it yourself for your truck and inc all recovery gear, lardy driver, strops slings shackles winch anchors and a full tank of Petrol

Rear .

This is far easier to make move than the front...

I have a pair of Jezes bent arms, worth every penny properly made quality metal fabrication and welding, for the money couldn't be A**d to make my own, same goes for the G2F relocation cones which I have on the casing not the chassis. Polybushed with reds where things you wnat to be held tight n square (ie chassis to A Frame) and blue where you want things to twist, I have made "Shaped" washers that replace the flat ones which allow more movement, greasable areas to help movement, modified A Frame Ball joint, tho in fairness I am now seeing the plate where the A frame bolts to the axle bending a bit, so I have an Upgrade in mind soon, longer brake hose, and then I have raised the wheel boxes up inside the tub by 3.5 inches, I have 34 simex and NO LIFT over std. Plus 5 inch shocks, pin and loop, with home made top mounts, modified bottom mounts agian blue polybushed. The top mounts are raised as the issue of full compression would mean the shock would implode, the height is from memory Plus 3/4 inch

Front

RAISED Turrets again around 3/4inch, spring dislocators on the top chassis mounting, calculated springs, blue and red polybushes as a combo in the hockey sticks for twist, genuine in panhard, +5 shocks again pin pin, modified axle mounts, again more curved washers, +3.5 inch brake lines, and a few other mods I can't think of at the mo I used +5 procomps as noone else seems to do any shock close to these the Rough Country I looked at can't supply these lengths, also the procomps are VFM and at £39 if I tear one apart (I expect to) its just 'replace it' time.

Both front and rear have Disco bumpstops, which are significantly less deep than std let alone the bigger ones that people fit, which IMHO deminishes some of the gain re the above this then means heavy trimming of the arches (I had a post on this too somewhere) and trimming bodywork too. To get the level right after you have got them roughly where you wnat them I made steel spacer to bolt between the top of the axle casing and the spring seat, and also the anti rattle RR part used in later RRs to stop springs rattling adds a handy 12mm to the heigh, these are them bolted in to the springs bottom so the disclocate at the top of the spring

Lastly do consider that DROOP is not everything, having massive droop on an axle and then limit the upward movment is self defeating, better to have balanced droop and upward movbement, and similarly I belive aim for matched movement at each end and corner, there is IMHO very little point having massive rear flex and none at the front, and to get matched corner to corner axle to axle movement takes a lot of planning and effort. The Bigger bumpstop are fitted (again IMHO) to stop tyres touching wheelboxes etc, and limit movemet, even tho the limited movement will be prob better than std, its not a clever solution. Similarly some kits add huge lift to aviod the bodywork issues, and then also some add deeper bumpstops ! ARGH !

Anyway

Based on all of the above yes you can get more, prob a lot more, but I prob will stop at this point although I have a couple of tweaks planned for within this system (as oppossed to 3 4 links etc) and also the rear springs need a tad more poundage

There are some off the shelf kits that are go, easy to fit and decent VFM (amongst the poor ill thought out ones) get a decent one (ask here) and you can save yourself a lot of heartache time and money....

Its all down to compromise

Hope the above helps

Nige

[SteveG]

Hi guy's hope all is well ok well spoke with the new boss (aka wife from saturday) and she has said i can do me suspesion. What i do not want to do is change the ride height from normal so would this work for better articulation.

procomp +2 allround

extended bump stops

extended brake lines

and dislocation cones

Any help and tips greatfully recieved

What lift height were you thinking of?

If you lift by 2", then fitting +2" shocks will give you same articulation as you have now. There's a backgrounder post that I put together that you can access here... Defender lift/suspension upgrades that you may find useful.

Extended brake lines are a good move. Depending on tyre size, lift height and type of springs - extended bumpo stops may not be required.

If you go for more articulation than the height of your springs then you will want some form of relocation device, be it cones, X-Flex springs etc.

Cheers

Steve

[pux]

What lift height were you thinking of?

If you lift by 2", then fitting +2" shocks will give you same articulation as you have now. There's a backgrounder post that I put together that you can access here... Defender lift/suspension upgrades that you may find useful.

Extended brake lines are a good move. Depending on tyre size, lift height and type of springs - extended bumpo stops may not be required.

If you go for more articulation than the height of your springs then you will want some form of relocation device, be it cones, X-Flex springs etc.

Cheers

Steve

Hi steve, i dont want to lift it, as i have done this with most of my trucks and the problems that come with them is in my opion a waste of money to me anyway, as always, im always on a budget the tyres im running at the moment are 235/85/16 insa turbos, so my thoughts so far are this:

4x +2 shocks

Set of rear relocation cones.

Set of longer brake hoses.

Set of H?Duty rear spring retainers

Then at a later date by the rear cranked trailing arms and lowered mounts and bump stops what you think. I appreciate all the advice so far many thanks guy's

[SteveG]

sorry I'll read the post properly next time

I would fit longer shocks to start with, rather than +2 now and lower shock mounts later. Speak to David at Llama 4x4 about their operating lengths of the +5" shocks and see if they are ok with standard shock turrets or not.

If you can stretch to it, a pair of rear gwyn lewis rear shock mounts would be a good investment. Their altered location is better for articulation and when you then fit cranked rear trailing arms at a later date you'll get the full use out of them and you can use the +5" shocks on the rear with these.

Cheers

Steve

[s2hotdog]

David you have a pm

Steve