need more droop

i have james duff springs and drop brackets i was told for a 3.5" lift for a ranger and extended radius arms and i want it to droop 4-5" more what can i do heres a pic flexed as far as it goes

Are your sway bars still connected? If so make some disconnects and that will help a bit.

We also run a Duff 3.5" kit. It started out as a 2.5" kit, got the f-150 lower spring seats, then replaced the springs with 3.5" duff springs and added 1/2" spacers..

We tacked the upgrades based on what was limiting the movement. First it was the shocks... They were too short (right length for stuff, but not for droop)

All we did to start was to space out the shock bushing. Basically, we put washers on at the bottom of the post mount and then put the bottom bushing on top of it. This pushed the shock down about 3/4". That got us more droop at the cost of stuff..

Next, we went to much longer front shocks and use f-250 upper shock mounts.

They are 32" extended and 19" compressed

999012-shocks 001 by maniak_az, on Flickr


shock-mount 002 by maniak_az, on Flickr

This gave us more travel and at that point the RA bushing was our limiting factor. We would run rubber bushings to try to get all the movement out of the stock length RA as we could.

The next upgrade was extended Radius arms with Ballastic Joints. I don't know if the upgrade of the joint was necessary, but since I bought the arms with Heim Joints I decided to upgrade them to an even stronger non post style joint. This arms are just modified stock arms.

Coated Radius Arms by maniak_az, on Flickr

In this pic you can see all 3 mods in one pic...

Build-day3 005 by maniak_az, on Flickr


When you start to get more travel you run into things like Axle beam to axle shaft clearance. You need to grind a little so the axle doesn't hit the housing..

finished c-clip eliminator by maniak_az, on Flickr


Here is the tavle as it sits now.

Droop

truckhaven-56 by maniak_az, on Flickr


Stuff:

truckhaven-57 by maniak_az, on Flickr

Let me know if you have any questions on what we did...

~Mark

EDIT: I forgot to mention, our current limiting factor for droop now is the spring length. For stuff the tire hits the inside top of the fender and/or airbox.

could you put something inside the coil so it can drop down when the tires drooped kinda like a jeep

94Gexplorer said:

could you put something inside the coil so it can drop down when the tires drooped kinda like a jeep

Click to expand...

Shhhhh Thats on my list of things to do/try..

IIRC, Rick had/has that type of setup (can't remember if he had it with TTB). It does allow the suspension to drop more but its very noisy.

~Mark

Without the spring putting any spring pressure down at the tire, it's not really going to do anything for traction or stability. Much better would be to get a longer, more flexy spring in there that's properly captured at both ends, though you'll need to do some figuring on what length and stiffness coil will work best for flex, and be at the right height so your camber/caster alignment will be correct.

This is mine with pretty much the same mods as Maniak's above, but with Jeep Cherokee coils instead.


I suspect with a heavier 4-door Ex you'd want to look at early Bronco coils instead of Cherokee ones (a little stiffer, but not so stiff to be like the TTB coils)

what bronco coils should i use i dont know how much lift i have but i think its around 3-4"

If you have a James Duff kit, most likely it has 3" drop brackets. You should be able to get up to another inch or so above whatever your brackets are and still be able to align it however.

For a 3-4" lift on your 4-door, I would think something with a free length of 19-20", and a spring rate around 275-320PPI (pounds per inch) would be what you'd need.

These look pretty close to that and should work with a little tweaking if the specs listed are correct.
http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-13202-superlift-coil-springs-3-3-lift-1966-77.html

These can work if you trim them a little (should be a bit higher quality spring too).
http://broncograveyard.com/bronco/i-23209-super-flex-coil-springs-4-inch-lift-csh57.html

Note none of these will fit without a little modding of your spring mounts. I would strongly suggest swapping out your stock steering for something better too, as it won't work at all if the linkage isn't down 100% horizontal at ride height (Stonecrusher makes a nice linkage that should work wonderfully on yours).

IIRC, another user here (cmhaah06) was looking to do this exact same thing on his, though I don't recall if he's gotten his coils in yet or not. You might try shooting him a PM.

if i went to a 5" lift spring and spring over in the rear instead of aal and shackles could it still be alignable if its not though i have a 3" body lift i could throw on there...i want 35's but if i have to cut fenders ill just get 33's.
it still has the stock steering its not to bad but has a little bit of bumpsteer and theres no swaybars
could someone measure how far above the coil tower the f250 shock mounts are

94Gexplorer said:

if i went to a 5" lift spring and spring over in the rear instead of aal and shackles could it still be alignable if its not though i have a 3" body lift i could throw on there...i want 35's but if i have to cut fenders ill just get 33's.
it still has the stock steering its not to bad but has a little bit of bumpsteer and theres no swaybars
could someone measure how far above the coil tower the f250 shock mounts are

Click to expand...

Here is the post where I did some measuring.
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2499764&postcount=35

The thread that contains the above post actually has a "how to" in the middle of it.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280125&highlight=f-250+mount

As for using the 5" spring, It depends on how much "lift" you actually get from it. If you really get 5" of lift it "might" be alignable. If you get closer to 4.5" it has more chance. If your getting 5.5", I doubt you will get the camber right.

Also, keep in mind, most SOA get 5.5-6" of lift. You can use shorter spring perches to help lower it some but I don't think I've every heard of someone getting 5" or less.

~Mark

thanks for the info so the bronco springs will give me how much lift they advertise? i thought it would be less because they dont have as much ppi as ttb springs so the 4" would be 3" on a ttb?
and manik i saw in ur measuring post ur tire rubs the radius arm and mine does too but just drivers side(it looks like its stuck inside the wheel well more than pass side) is that a common thing?
oh and i checked whats limiting droop and its definatly the duff springs and in the rear i dont know what limits leaf travel i dont have any spring clips i just welded a u bolt on the bottom leaf thinking that would help flex right?
also i took some shocks off my buddys chevy and they are 30extended 17compressed that should work after i do the shock mounts i think(btw the yellow shocks i have on there came off my stock heep cherokee and they suck)

My tires rub the ra more now that I have the extended arms because the end of the arms are under the frame instead on inboard of the frame like it is from the factory.

My stock arms would rub a little at full lock.

~Mark

I found a couple pics that show what I mean by the RA being inboard or Under the frame.

Here it is Inboard using Drop brackets.. You can see the RA ends are inside the frame rail.

IMG_1941 by maniak_az, on Flickr

Here you can see the end of the Radius arms are under the frame. If the Arms were built differently the rub could have been minimized. As it is now, it rubs much sooner than it used to.

Front-suspension-shots 019 by maniak_az, on Flickr


Also, I don't know if it was helping the "rub" but I was running 2 RA bushing front washers back to back at the front of the RA bushing. This would push the axle forward some. I did that more to get the tires out of the fender.

~Mark

94Gexplorer said:

thanks for the info so the bronco springs will give me how much lift they advertise? i thought it would be less because they dont have as much ppi as ttb springs so the 4" would be 3" on a ttb?

Click to expand...

It'll probably be a hair more than what's claimed for the Bronco due to differences in how the springs are mounted, however I wouldn't be paying any attention to that... If you want the best chance of everything coming out right on, you really should do what's needed to get the exact specifications required for the springs you need, and then try to match that up as best you can with what's available .
Being that the amount of movement a modded TTB has from full droop-to-ride height is usually in the neighborhood of 5" at the spring perch, you want a coil that will compress around that amount when the vehicle's static weight is put on it (if yours has more or less than that, you of course can adjust the figures accordingly).

As an example:

Say you weigh the front of your truck by driving it onto a scale, and it reads 2400lbs. Subtract approx 350 to get the amount of weight the springs will be supporting (2050lbs... This is your 'sprung' weight, which is minus the axle & wheels).
Also factor in the TTB beams (acting as levers) have roughly a 1.5:1 ratio of leverage against the springs.

2050 ÷ 2 = 1025lbs (sprung weight each side).
1025 × 1.5 = 1537.5lbs (amount of pressure on the coil).
Suppose your prospective coil has a rating of 320PPI...
1537.5 ÷ 320 = 4.8" (amount the coil will compress under 1537.5lbs of pressure).

Stock coils sit at 10.5-11" tall with weight on them, so for 4" of lift, you're looking for a coil that will sit at 14.5-15".

15" + 4.8" = 19.8" (free length of the 320PPI coil you need).

The coils in the first link I gave should work in this example when used along with a 1.3" spacer (which your lower spring mount will likely become about that tall anyway after the modifications needed so it clears the upswept part of your beam where the knuckle is).

Yes, it certainly it would be nice if the lift industry would figure out all this crap for us and offer us a ready-to-go kit (instead of sticking us with the uber-stiff TTB coils that they do), but until they do, we're forced to do it on our own (re-engineering a suspension for more flex is unfortunately not a matter of simply sticking some random parts to it).

Great write up ...

This post says all the stuff that has been running around the back of my head. I currently drive an 88 Big Bronco, all stock for home that I share with my wife as a third car. It gets limited trail duty.

My work truck is a stock 98 Ranger with 31's and posi in the rear that gets me around, but I have to walk too many trails when it runs out of wheel travel. I do erosion surveys for the OHV recreation providing agencies. I'll be retiring from them in few years, and I want to have a trail rig so I can still do on-call stuff and not be limited to stock Gov't issue trucks.

I'm leaning heavily in the direction of a nice Eddie Bauer 1993 Ex four door with a 3" lift and a lot of droop. I have a few thousand miles of trails under my belt, and droop is always what gets me out and having to hand winch my way along

This is a great write up. For those of us who see trail time during the week, a soft highway ride, max articulation and all day comfort are keys. You have done very well with these builds