[Angus Martin]

Check this out guys, ought to promote a bit of discussion, I reckon old school builds like this are pretty cool anyway.
Drop shackles and hangers and still has down pressure.
Thought I'd post it up if others are interested

[Gwagensteve]

and.....?

[greavesyzook]

Was there ment to be pictures??

[vet 180]

That pic was mad....


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[Gwagensteve]

Let me guess, was this the video of Bill's Wildfing?

[pete_79]

You guys down there are always talking about old Bill, this one finally made my go searching.

Found this and I must say, no wonder you hold him in such regard, he's one special guy and what a rig....
https://youtu.be/MM0oE0q7648

[Gwagensteve]

He's cool to wheel with and to hang with around the campfire for a chat. The video was taken on his block where we wheel- heading there in a week. Spewing my car is still in bits from the last time I was there.

[Gwagensteve]

I guess this thread might not have been about Bill's car

*but we'll never know*

PS- If it IS Bill's car, it doesn't have "hydraulics"- the rear shackles are series 3 army spec wheel jacks, but they're passive and have no oil in them.

[Angus Martin]

AHAHA sorry, I forgot to post the link
Yeah talking about Bill's, yeah they are made out of jacks, cool you know him, small world

[Gwagensteve]

I disagree with Bill a bit about the "ground pressure" thing, well, I don't really disagree with Bill, it's more that the fact his car remains stable and planted when the drooped side is unloaded is the reason why nobody else's car does. It's so fundamentally different to, say, a sierra with drop shackles it can't be compared.

It has enormously heavy axles and basically doesn't ride on its springs at all. It has almost no roll stiffness front or rear

I've spend hours and hours driving the tracks on the block and talking this stuff over with Bill.

I'll see if I can post the whole article I wrote on Bill and the car for 4WD Nation magazine. I haven't watched the YouTube video with sound on (at work) but based on them not being able to spell Bill's name properly, I'll wager my article is a bit more accurate.

The video is cool to watch though- I'm sure most have never seen a car like that.

[Angus Martin]

Yeah cool, I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Yeah, in Cairns the kind of most modified 4wd you see is a patrol on 35s with a 4" lift and maybe an engine conversion, what I see on here and whatnot is so new and different from the 4wd community up here, hence why I'm such a noob when it comes to stuff like beadlocks and anything out of the ordinary, NO ONE has stuff like that here.

[Gwagensteve]

Understand totally. Capability and the nature of 4WD culture is an interesting beast.

Obviously, there's significant barriers to building something super capable if it requires road legality. Additionally, there's no point building something as capable as, say Bill's car if there's no suitable terrain to drive it on. I'm the first to admit that there's only a handful of forest tracks I know of that interest me to drive - I enjoy driving Bills block more than pretty much any track I have ever driven, because he's spent 30 years building the terrain to be challenging.

The other big impediment to capability is 4WD culture itself. It's a culture values making it look hard.

I was watching a promo video the other day for a 6WD land cruiser. (Not the patriot one) It was filmed on Rocky track, a track I know well and is 10 minutes from my house. Instead of crawling the track to make it look easy, the driver matted it and this thing was lurching and bouncing and throwing rocks and making a moderate bit of track look really difficult. Why make it look hard? Why spend $100K on a 6WD car only have it smashing it's way up a track like an 80's pajero?

Same as rock bouncing. Whilst rock bouncers are impressive and (some) of the drivers are clearly very skilled, I can't help notice that they'll often crawl the track, then back down and then smash their way up, bouncing off trees etc.

Imagine if the terrain was hard enough you HAD to drive hard, and couldn't just crawl it?

When we went to Bill's out 12 months ago, some dude had been getting around there before us in a 40 series cruiser. LS motor, coils, auto, comp treps - all the toys. He finished driving his last track as I arrived and he'd torn up the soft top, scuffed the paint up all over the place, and dug holes all over the property from sitting on the limiter. Shame he didn't hang around to watch us idling our way around. (although he's pretty much wrecked a track - digging big enough holes it's now basically impassable in the wet - nice work champ) I'm sure he thought he was doing great - because he's built his car in the "comp truck" mould which is all about horsepower and then recovery, and making everything feel and look as "spectacular" as possible.

[just_cruizin]

The reason he can have the spring the way they are is because they don't locate the diffs, as said in the video. The rear is linked and the spring just stop the chassis sitting on the diff, could have done the same with coils, like he has the front, and used retainers. He's used what he had, which is cool, but a helll of a lot more complex than it has to be.

I do like his portals though

[Gwagensteve]

The leaves absolutely do retain the axle. There is no panhard at all and the rear A frame doesn't retain the axle laterally at all - the springs do that. The a frame prevents axle wrap and controls the instant centre. It's not as complex in theory as it looks. If the leaves were replaced with coils another pair of control arms or a panhard would be required.

Because the car isn't built for speed (or jumping or whatever) the fact the axle isn't really located laterally with any precision once drooped isn't critical - it runs so deep into it's travel that one side or other is always seated when articulating.

[MrRocky]

Capable = less fun
I get the most enjoyment punting near stockers up challenging stuff. Walking up every obstacle becomes boring

[Gwagensteve]

I sort of agree, but a near stock car can't be a test bed for ideas, and there's always terrain you can't drive because you don't have enough car.

[MrRocky]

Thats probably more true in the eastern states than wa.
Gear and lock a sierra on 31"s in perth your pretty much going to drive everything except mud holes provided you can actually drive.

[Gwagensteve]

And there's no question the 95% of the time a 31 and one locker is plenty in Vic to get where you need to go. If you enjoy the more interesting lines though and a select few very hard tracks, it's not enough.

But, there's also something to be said for doing it easy. It might be possible to get a Sierra with one locker and 31's up most tracks, but if it's super hard on the car it's not something you're going to want to do often - It's more doing it to prove it's possible.

[greenzook89]

Its much the same in QLD. 90% of stuff is doable with one locker and gears, albeit harder on the car. The other 10% is twin locked or tracks that you should really not attempt in a SWB Sierra due to steepness.

We did a hard trip not long ago and every car was twin locked except a rear locked WT with 6.5s. Whilst he drove the same tracks,there were some creative lines, harsh driving and one instance where a front locker was required so that snatch was out to haul him up a hill.

[pete_79]

I reckon that's true for SEQ tracks, but the rest of the state would be more like Mr Rocky says.

As Angus has noted, Cairns doesn't really have the technical terrain.
From my experience I can say the Townsville area doesn't really have the technical terrain.
And I would expect Greenzook would say the same for the Mackay area.

You can drive pretty much every track up there with a standard Cruiser (mostly because nearly every track up there was made by a cruiser that came straight off the farm).

It just the mud that stops you and that's only because of the Patrols on 35s that have dug massive trenches when it's wet and wrecked it for everyone else.

And I actually agree with Steve that it's all about the culture.
In the metro areas the culture drives bigger and better modifications, tracks end up forming to suit those rigs with bigger and better modifications, so the next generation have to go even bigger and better. And the cycle continues.

I can give a perfect example;
One of our contractors at work is an awesome fabricator with a brilliant engineering brain.
He built a Patrol to take to the cape on 35s, twin locked, 6 inches of lift, front and rear winches and heaps of other bigger and better things.
We got chatting about all the mods and I asked his plans for the cape.
I couldn't believe it when he said he was going to drive exactly the same tracks and camp at the same spots I did 15 years ago. I did it all in my stock standard 75 series cruiser with a huge steel canopy that had 2 spares and a tinny on top, 200l of fuel, 100l of water and all my gear for a month in the bush jammed onto the tray.
I did most of that trip in 2wd, never came close to needing lockers, never mind 35s or front and rear winches.

But if the tracks where wet and these guys drove their rigs hard, then the next generation would have to build something even better to get in there, and then the cycle continues....

[Angus Martin]

Yes a lot of that is true Pete, but if you go beyond where the bogans go to flick mud there are some good tracks a few hours from cairns, but indeed it is the culture

[vet 180]

MrRocky wrote:

Capable = less fun
I get the most enjoyment punting near stockers up challenging stuff. Walking up every obstacle becomes boring

I agree with this. There are limits, but going out is about having fun. I prefer to develop driving skills first and then the car


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[MrRocky]

Yeah i got to a stage with my previous lwb where there were only a couple of semi challanging tracks for the car and other zooks willing to drive them were in short supply. The last one i decided to take a more standard approach to mods which made me need to drive better and had a greater risk of damage but fun level was much improved.
Perhaps my outlook would differ if we had the terrain and could actually engineer stuff to be legal

[pete_79]

Angus Martin wrote:

Yes a lot of that is true Pete, but if you go beyond where the bogans go to flick mud there are some good tracks a few hours from cairns, but indeed it is the culture

Yeah, I'm not saying there's absolutely no hard tracks in Queensland outside of the South East corner.
Obviously there's a lot of great country out there, logic says there'll also be some good tracks.

My observations are just that the culture in the regional areas is one that it's much more about touring and exploring, with a few little fun spots here and there to keep you on your toes.
I'm sure there are some great builds hiding in farm sheds out there, rigs that just drive the same few tracks on the property or not too far from home.
But I believe there isn't the motivation to build really complected setups (like Bills) when the reality is you can throw a lift and set of muddies on pretty much any 4WD vehicle and drive the majority of tracks in your area.

I know in my personal case I was quite happy with my little Jimny in Sydney. I had the NQ touring logic, so got a lift and muddies and was off touring around fire trails and seeing the sights.
But after a few harder trips around the Sydney region and getting to see what actual technical terrain is, then being inspired by a few guys off here (even some that never post ) I've started looking at modifications and technical builds in a completely different light.....

[just_cruizin]

Gwagensteve wrote:

The leaves absolutely do retain the axle. There is no panhard at all and the rear A frame doesn't retain the axle laterally at all - the springs do that.

Steve the video describes the lower and upper links to the rear diff, with the lowers being mounted in near the transfer going out to the outer bottom of the diff with the A frame as the top link. Looking at the 'jacks' any lateral load on them would crush them like a coke can.

[Angus Martin]

Yeah true, I've got a mate who's building a very complex and whacko sierra which I hope will work for him after the amount of effort he's putting into it but he probably should've bought a single cab old lux, It would suit his needs a lot better. it's and awesome build nonetheless but I hope for his sake it performs (I have my doubts). If I explained what he is doing to it in an detail I'd be here typing for hours and then the next time I stop by he'll tell me he's doing something else even more out of the ordinary. (basically lux engine, mazda bravo front clip, 35s, rear steer, 200L fuel tank, heaps of tray, winch under the body but above the chassis, SPOA, and white water raft floats which inflate under the sills and paddles on the tyres (will go on like snow chains).
It's really cool to watch the build progress and either way it'll be a cool car. He wants to drive across Australia making his own tracks and float across rivers, All for Adventure style.

[MrRocky]

Sounds disgustingly overcomplicated

[Gwagensteve]

just_cruizin wrote:

Steve the video describes the lower and upper links to the rear diff, with the lowers being mounted in near the transfer going out to the outer bottom of the diff with the A frame as the top link. Looking at the 'jacks' any lateral load on them would crush them like a coke can.

Ah yes, my bad- there is an upper link I had forgotten about. the lower link terminates in an old land cruiser radius arm which has no bushing left so the whole thing is super loose- there's loads of play in the lower link. This does put lateral some lateral load into the jacks- they do bend and break from time to time and from what I understand this was getting worse as the lower link bush wore more.

Since Bill ripped the rear crossmember off dragging a 40' container, he's remade the shackle hangers at a better angle and they run more freely now- they used to jam up and go off like a gunshot when they snapped shut.

[Gwagensteve]

just_cruizin wrote:

Steve the video describes the lower and upper links to the rear diff, with the lowers being mounted in near the transfer going out to the outer bottom of the diff with the A frame as the top link. Looking at the 'jacks' any lateral load on them would crush them like a coke can.

I was at Bill's today and confirmed. I was initially right (and the video was wrong, something Bill mentioned too)

The rear is a one link. The springs DO laterally locate the axle.

The confusion is caused by there being a long "top" link which is attached to the top of the rear diff housing with a ball joint, and two braces which run from the axle tubes to the top link. It makes it look like a three link/A-frame setup, which it isn't.

Bill confirmed the springs can locate the axle laterally because at least one side of the drop-down spring hanger is folded up onto the chassis at any time.

[just_cruizin]

Reviewing again I agree the springs would be laterally restraining the diff by how big those plates are. That said I believe the other three links would still be providing a lot of lateral support if those plates weren't there.

Take a sierra leaf just fixed in the fixed (not shackle) mount and move it side to side, you get a fair bit of movement. He has those large plates which appear to stop a lot of that but far from ideal as there would be a lot of leverage by the spring on that point. The jacks are doing SFA other then kinda guiding the free end of the spring back into position