long travel rear suspension with 35" tires?

[troyboy162]

the nut is about a quarter inch off the rim. I have a gusset in the back an made the whole thing out of 1/4 plate. I would suspect I will hit part of it, but not likely the bottom of the shock at least.

I took it out for a test today and it sure is fun. just a desert road that has a few bumps. The rear is defiantly valved stiffer then the front, but its working really well.

[Kryptoroxx]

You know I am too ghetto for that lol. There are disk brake conversions for our axles. Last one I read used ford mustang calipers and montairo disks. looks like a bit of work though.

stole another picture for inspiration

I was about to suggest that idea. The disc brakes would give you a little extra wiggle room for mounting the shock on the axle and a gusset to work off of if you welded to the axle. Plus I wouldn't feel like such a loonie for wanting to do it myself.

[troyboy162]

Kinda back to the drawing board here. With the long travel has come extreme articulation. With the limit straps set for 12" of travel, the resulting limits to articulation not only make the shock touch the frame, but the truck is too flexy. The slinky rear end makes it unstable on offcamber. I've got a couple options.

- figure some exotic angles on the limit straps that inhibit flex without sacrificing droop. This is not very likely from what I'm testing

- rig up a sway bar. This is the most likely route. I really hate to have one , but it will solve the instability at the sacrifice of a lot of articulation

[4x4mike]

There is a local place making a sway bar that guys on Pirate have been having luck with.

http://store.tk1racing.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=186

This guy is running one on his SAS'd 3rd gen. I'm not sure you have the room with all your new hardware.
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/27349369-post61.html

[troyboy162]

wow the price on that one is alot better then the curry anti-rock. Right now im trying to find a stock one since I have run that in the past and it wasn't terrible on the rocks. I broke my original one unfortunately. Its easy to implement as well since the support structures are already there. I'd need to extend the links for it though.

[troyboy162]

I put a stock sway bar on and the performance is near ideal in my opinion. Its fixing the body lean and not hampering flex much. I wheeled with a stock sway for a long time so its also has a predictable, familiar feel. A unexpected issue is that the end links for the sway bar cant be lengthened. My plan to lengthen them to accommodate the 4" lift is ruined. Longer links will smash into the lower control arms at flex.

One of my problems is still plaguing the set up. in extreme conditions the shock will still end up hitting the frame. Its bad really. Its got the leverage to pretzel that shock if I were to go to the hammers or something. luckly no harm seems to have happened in my testing.

I'm going to cut the top shock mounts off and put them further outboard. Probably about another 1/4 inch outboard. It dosnt seem like much but thats another 1/4 into the tire under flex. I hope to get away with it but wheel spacers may have to go back on. I'll post up detailed pics when the bugs are worked out. Its been alot of trial and error over here haha but I think these are the first 12" shocks outside the frame with 35" meats

[4x4mike]

If you can't lengthen the end links what about the small blocks that go under the mounting bracket of the sway bar. That might level things out.

[Seanz0rz]

You can try the relocation brackets like Sonoran Steel sells. The biggest problem with the sway bar is that as you move it up, it is going to move forward. Lifted, you will never have the same geometry of stock, but it will still be better than nothing. You can also try using the endlinks from the front on the rear, they should be slightly longer.

[Kryptoroxx]

I have been enjoying watching your build but I have to ask the question of the exact purpose of moving the shocks outside the frame. Is it just so you can mount longer shocks with a better lower shock mount or is there more to it beside that. Those are pretty good reasonsbut the different mount affects handling quite a bit in all situations.

stamped and snail mailed

[troyboy162]

interesting... I hadnt seen that sway bar lift kit. That is something to keep in mind for sure. So far I like the performance of the sway bar how it is, but if I widen the track width with spacers it will be a candidate for bringing things back into spec.

Shocks on the outside are just the easiest way to make the long bodied shocks fit and work. Anything inside the frame will need a supporting cross member. When I looked there was a lot of business in that area so I'm not sure a cross member would be even doable. There is the benefit of mounting shocks straight up and down from a valving stand point but thats pretty minor in the grand scheme. The locations I see some people put there shocks on the outside of the frame would not work for me with the bigger tires. I wonder also how much they flexed out there trucks. I have no idea how you could mount a 2.5" bypass shock back there and not hit the frame or wail the tire.

The stock location ends up being a poor spot for these types of shocks since they generally have much longer compressed lengths for a given travel compared to normal gas shocks. Of course at this point I'd probably take crappy travel over all this fab work lol. I'm not sure I would trust the stock upper shock mount to much abuse anyhow. jumping a truck seems smooth in the driver seat but the shock mount is seeing much greater stress levels.