will_warne Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 Bushey, very useful diagrams. This is similar to what I had origially planned. However, with my current setup there is no electrics and only one hydraulic line per corner - both bonuses in my book as I want to make it simple and reliable. I could, however, do something very similar down the line with a little bit of work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill van snorkle Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 Seasons Greetings to all members. Haven't posted here for a while. Not sure why, maybe due to recent lack of subjects that interest me.However the subject matter on this thread is one I have played around with over the years.Don't know whether I can offer any useful tech applicable to challenge type vehicles, but when I have had time to read the whole thread and try to recall from memory the results I acheived re passive forced articulation I will try to contribute something. Regards, Bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uninformed Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Bill, I was skim reading this and kept thinking....hey isnt this forced aticulation...like one example that Bill built... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robhybrid Posted January 1, 2011 Author Share Posted January 1, 2011 I've just skimmed this thread but some of the posts reminded me of Dirtydiesel's shopping car with two A-frames: Vitara on G's unfortunately I didn't get to see this cart in action or hear any reports on how such a suspension set up performed. Looking forward to hearing your opinions Bill, Seasons greetings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill van snorkle Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 Unfortunately all my notes, drawings, calculations etc pertaining to 3 suspension systems I built or provided input to were lost in the bushfires a couple of years ago, but here is a description of the one with what could be called passive forced articulation. Hybrid LR/RR with 3 link front plus Watts link, Std A frame, 2 lower link rear suspension with 124lbin coils on floating upper seats, Boge leveller replaced with dual opposite wound coil springs, VW beetle rear torsion bar suspension/ single airbag combination used for rear height adjustment. The front and rear axle housings were interconnected by propshafts bolted on at the roll axis and connected via a 2gear gearbox that was intended to force the axles to articulate in opposite directions with the added benefit of eliminating body roll. In practice, all the lash in the propshaft slip joints and the interconnecting gearbox added up to about 15 degrees, so there was no noticeable improvement in body roll.A differential was tried in place of the 2 shaft gearbox but that had even more lash. Crosscountry performance in extreme terrain the system works well at keeping all wheels evenly planted and maintaining stability on really silly obstacles, but the reality is that the much simpler but unusual suspension system on my modified series 2a,Which I would basically describe as ''unsprung double fulcrum see saw articulation system'' see thread ''Bills LRs'' in Members Vehicles performs equally as well, without the road handling issues of excessive pitching and diving to the left under brakes, which thankfully I was able to cure (band aid)after lots of head scratching and experimenting by fitting supplimentary dampers to the rear lower control arms approx half distance between axle and chassis mountings.For all its complexity the only real advantage the suspension on this vehicle has compared to my 2a relates to ride quality.Mine has a comparatively harsh buckboard ride,mainly due I suspect to the antidive/antisquat link geometry becoming greatly exxaggerated by the portal drop boxes, but thats another story for another post I guess. Bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill van snorkle Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 The edit function seems to have disappeared on my previous post, but just want to add that the links from the VW torsion bar arms to the rear axle were actually telescopic dampers, on the assumption that the rebound valving would provide sufficient resistance for the torsion bars to work like an antiroll bar, but not restrict axle articulation at crosscountry crawling speeds. The choice of a watts link up front was made because with a panhard rod the axles articulation geometry was different when the right hand spring was compressed compared to when the left was compressed, and the right tyre sidewall would foul and bind on the coil spring, mounting and witches hat.In fact the outboard spring location of coil sprung rover chassis presented me with quite a few tyre clearance issues when trying to design for a lot of articulation whilst staying with standard width axles and maximum allowable legal wheel offsets and tyre sizes.That is why I went for inboard (under chassis) springs on my own vehicle.Legal axle/track width is not really an issue with offroad only comp vehicles I guess. Re trailer hitches for use on One Link A frames. the 2" hitch on my trailer only offers around 20 degrees of articulation, wheras the axles on my vehcle can articulate 30 degrees or more.I use a LandCruiser radius arm metalastic bush that is just starting to break up after 8 years of severe articulation usage. Bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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