Suspension Arrangement

[stuck]

Gent's,

On a Defender & IIRC a RRC back axle (I've never looked at a Disco & it's a long time since I owned a RRC) the shock absorbers are mounted in a different plane to the one in which the spring, axle etc can move in.

Is / was there a good reason for doing this rather than fitting the damper within the spring?

My CCV truck has it's shocks mounted inside the springs & works well but I can't help but wonder if I'm missing something or was it just a case of penny pinching or not being able to accommodate turrets on the back end?

[Chicken Drumstick]

Not sure you'd get a turret under the floor on an RRC.

That said mounting the shock in a turret at the rear can limit travel if the shock fouls the turret. That said it so change the shock top to a pin rathe than an eye fitment.

[muddy]

I think the idea is to try and add damping in more planes so to try and make it more effective, other cars also do it such as Nissan D21 and terranos I think. It's actually abit rubbish for EXTREME (woo yeah!) travel as because the axle drops in an arc the rear shock would need to be longer than the front shock to get equal amounts of travel.

Unless your getting into real long travel where the shock is fouling the spring or spring perch under articulation ( using110 back springs and perches does give a little more room to manoeuvre) I think shocks in springs is not a bad idea as they are fairly well protected.

Will.

[Daan]

the advantage of the shock inside the spring is obviously it is well protected, but also having the shocks exactly vertical makes them more effective compared to when they are under an angle, there is a motion ratio basically. Disadvantage is that under a lot of travel, say 12" and beyond, the shock start fouling the turret, so if you into showing off your suspension travel on a ramp, it is not so good. For me, the spring inside the shock workes well.

Daan

[ian_s]

IIRC early RRC's had the rear shocks going in different directions, one side angled forward, one angled rearward, apparently done to do reduce axle tramp.

as for your CCV truck, if it works OK at the moment, and the shocks dont bind on articulation, then leave it as it is

[mmgemini]

On the early models of Ranger Rover the shocks were set differentlt to as said, reduce axle tramp. I believe this was carried over for some Defender 110's from the lengenthening of the RR chassis to Defender.

If you check later Defenders you will find that the shocks are both facing forward BUT the holes are still there on the righthand chassis rail for the righthand shock to face rearwards.

Those holes are also there on a Discovery chassis to 300Tdi.

[sean f]

The only reason I can see that they are mounted at an angle is to stop them intruding into the rear body of the vehicle, look at the height of the front turrets and think of them sticking through the rear floor.

As said vertical shocks will work better and you will get more travel for the same length shock so if you have the room and it works no problem let it be.

As travel increases a shock in spring will eventually reach a point where it binds on the spring, for long travel fron suspension a modification is normally used to move the shock outside of the spring (see QT 3 link setup).