This pic was taken before the new front Coilover mount modification was done today.
Need to concentrate on the front CO mounts. With all the changing of geometry of the drive train the one thing that has remained constant is the front Coilover mounts.
These were designed when I still had the D35 in the stock location.
It's literally holding back the flex or more specifically the droop.
Why have all the time and money in this SAS/4link and then have something so simple as a shock mount holding it back.
Not to mention, the Dallas Redskins game don't come on untill Sun night and I'm gettin bored.
I gave some thought to the above pic and figured there is still more droop to be had with out going to a longer travel shock.
And sometimes that's not the answer. Your not going to get something for nothing. Meaning there's a trade off in a longer travel shock and that is the tube has to be increased also, so now you have to worry about the opposite end of the spectrum and that is the you can loose some Stuff in the trade off and have to think about that in making the mounts.
Here is the old shock location and needs some tweaking to get some more droop with the shock that I have.
So some new shock mounts need to be fabricated. To make one pair of brackets I'll need two different tabs due to where I have to mount it on the hoop.
This one side has to be 2 and 1/16" from apex of bolt hole to apex of hoop mounting end.
Keeping the the Green thing I'm using some well seasoned 1/4" steel that was on the Bronco for over 20 some years. It's what's left of an old Reese rear hitch. Most of it has already been used on this truck as you'll see in the next pic. LOL
Now here is the modified coilover hoop. The ends that bolt to the frame are the actual ends of the Reese hitch that I did over 4 years ago ha ha.
But what I did was to move the mounting point of the shock to the right for a more Droop friendly location and also made it longer.
I'll have to re-adjust the spring height also. Cause if I don't the ride height will be higher.
The bracket is now 1.5" longer and coupled with the more vertical spring angle will give me a higher spring rate which means I'll need to lower the adjusting nuts which will give me more droop
The more I thrash around with these CO angles and spring rates the better I appreciate just how fine they are.
And here is a good comparison of the modification to shock mount between the top pic and the newly modified length and positioning of the mount.
Easy to see that if you look at the links that it has gained some droop.
Plus the angle is less at full droop.
Also now at full droop the shock angle is more vertical.
At ride height the top of shock is 7 deg leaning to left.
I also got the top of the shock leaning straight back toward engine.
One reason for this is that it's not on a 1 to 1 ratio. Meaning as the axle goes down 1" the shock goes down less. If it was perfectly vertical in both planes then it would be 1 to 1.
Of coarse you loose shock efficiency and coil rate, but not enough to hurt anything.
But if you do have to lean the shock, that's where the right spring rate comes into play when buying the springs.
Now for some more playing and seeing how it does.
If you look at the shock you can see that there is still plenty of droop left in the shock by the relation of the shock housing to the piston rod.
But not so much that it hurts the stuff.
These little piles of shale put here by a front end loader that are only a few miles from my house are a great little testing ground. They're piled one right next to each other.
Newlarger diameter tires will be here during the Winter months. Could use them here as this pic shows LOL.
Just added: I've noticed the whine from the 8.8 rear has decreased since I lowered the pinion angle by relocating the radius arms to a lower position. Hmmm, must be a lubrication thing.
Well it was fun again doing this and hope you enjoyed it.