Suspension upgrade
After all the different changes/enhancements made to the Land Rover I was still a bit negative towards its on-road handling and general performance. I checked the wheel alignment, fitted new tyres, checked the steering arms, tie rod ends, steering relay, steering box etc. etc. Everything seems in order, but she still feels too loose on the road. I finally took her to a steering specialist shop and after the Land Rover has spend a couple of days at the shop the owner phoned me and asked why I brought the vehicle in. I said to him I think the ball joints are stuffed or there is something else wrong with the steering meganism. he informed me that the reason for asking is that they can't find anything wrong and the car seems in perfect shape and condition. If I insist they will replace the ball joints and rebuilt the steering box and relay, but he is sure it will be a waist of money. So I went and collected my vehicle content on "getting used to the drive-ability" of the vehicle, which I duly did. Some months ago I met a guy who had the same problem and he said it is the suspension bushes. After he replaced them it was virtually a different car!
Guess what! I immediately started to phone around and I got hold of a Spring manufacturing company who agreed that they will manufacture a new set if springs for the Land Rover, try different settings and replace all the relevant bushes. This is what they did.....
Replaced all 4 sets of leaf springs. Friction pads were put between the leafs. They also fitted Polly-urethane bushes. I bought normal stock shocks a couple of months ago, so no changes there. After the above I did various test on the vehicle and I found the following:
On tar she felt a bit hard, but not worse than before. The stock shocks are too short for the setting of the springs - she stood a lot taller than before, but the shocks are nearly at the end of the shock travel. The check straps were virtually in play before any spring movement and that had the effect of lashing the tail end down when I went over an obstacle. I undid the check straps and she felt much, much better. After removing the check straps she was a lot smoother on tar as well. Well I took her back to the spring shop and they did the following:
- "split" the spring pack in two. Three or four blades in the rear together to serve as a primary spring pack then a gap of approx. 2cm with the remaining 5 or 6 blades packed together as the bottom pack or "secondary pack". That was done both front and rear.
- Reset the rear springs a little lower to accommodate the shocks and remove one or two blades.
Conclusion:
Well quite frankly I don't know. I need to compare the Land Rover now to a stock Land Rover. She still feels reasonably hard on tar. On wash board surface she is still bouncing. I do think however that the ride is a bit more comfortable. My friends are of the opinion that there is a remarkable difference in comfort. Maybe my judgement are thrown because I drove the Land Rover between each setup and now I can't really compare the final result with the original?
Here follows a couple of theories and responses I got for removing the check straps: These comments were meant as advise and I therefore do not publish the names of the people that offered the advise.
"When the check strap comes tight the opposite wheel becomes the fulcrum as the vehicle tries to roll instead of the spring or bump stop. This is often enough to keep the center of gravity from moving over the fulcrum."
"I didn't comment on whether I thought the check strap idea worked or not. IMHO I don't think they would be terribly effective. My guess is that removing them would only decrease your tip over angle a degree or two, from 45 to 43 or 44, which is why I have no qualms about removing them on my own personal vehicles. I think the increase in articulation and hence off road performance more than offsets the slight loss of tip over angle."
"I would recommend looking at getting longer shocks and putting a spacer in the bump stops if necessary to stop the shockers bottoming out - it is not a good idea to use the shockers to restrict spring travel in either direction as they are just not strong enough - I think there is probably an advantage in having the vehicle a little bit higher if possible - You do have standard length spring shackles don't you? Check they haven't been replaced with army/longer ones to boost the old springs."
"I had a set of springs once with the spring pack split - they are not uncommon - and I found that twigs and branches etc kept getting wedged in the gap, on other sets I have seen they has a large (long) 'keeper' shackle, like a long u-bolt, which stopped things sliding up between the leaves. The gap of about 2cm doesn't seem much, on the ones I had the bottom leaves were flatter with about 3 inches of space at the end of the leaves."
"Don't want to be another bearer of unwanted help, but you should have tried parabolics. They give you a softer ride, improve articulation and give you a lift that works with stock shocks. Of course most of us switching to parabolics, are getting rid of thoroughly flogged springs which may not be a good comparison to 'frictionless' leaf packs. I'm running parabolics on mine. The original check straps lasted only a few hundred miles after the parabolic installation. Drove it for a year with no check straps without any problems on moderate 4wd and lots of road use. Finally ordered a set of supposedly longer straps and really couldn't tell any difference, but I wasn't doing any rock crawling. At rest, the new straps only allow about 1" of down movement."
"The straps are there to protect the driveshaft and universals. Too much movement in the axle can cause the yoke and flange of the two sides of the universal joints to come in contact with each. Too much of that and/or at too great an angle and something will come apart. It also may be possible to have the driveshaft separate at the spline joint if the axle drops too far. From TAW's experimenting, it looks like this is more likely for the front. The straps do also keep the shocks from taking all the load. Have driven a rover with too tall springs and the thunk and clang is brutal with stock shocks. Suspect the straps are on the rear only because of axle windup under torque loads which can cause large gyrations of the axle. The front seems a lot less effected by torque wind up possibly because of weight transfer which affects the grip of the tires."