[djed]

does anyone know a good Suzuki suspension specialist in Brisbane ?

I need some that can have a look a my current set-up and give me some good quality advice.

[Rusho]

Post details and pics on here. Someone will help you out for sure. What do you want to know exactly?

[djed]

yeah thanks. i will get together some pics and some details.

Specs:
1997 SJ80
50 mm dobinson springs
just cruzin 50 mm poly body lift
pedders front struts
ultima rear shocks
rear poly bushes
adjustable front castor poly bushes (2 - 4.5 degree)
adjustable panhard rods front and back
new swivel hub kit and king pin bearings (no king pin shims)
adjusted streering box
new tie rod end
28 psi on 30's
Will post wheel alignment info up later tonight (basically 0 degree toe and 2 positive castor)


1st - the car drives pretty good normally however on the road from Gympie to Rainbow beach (shitty road curved profile, lots of bumps and potholes) it tracks all over the road like the wind in blowing and is completely, dangerous at 70 km upwards. however on the bruce highway can safely do 110km

2nd - the rear right vehicle height is sagged about 0.5-1 inch (could be the extra weight of the spare Tyre). Thinking about spring helpers in the rear.

3rd - would like to get right of the poly bushes and get a professionally re-weld the control arm mounts to get 4 degree of caster.

[alien]

1 - king pin shims may help, but you're on to something with caster correction... also, 28psi on 31's is too high, drop down to around 25 front and 22 rear.

2 - thats the suzuki lean - lots of weight including the driver is on that side so it sags faster than the other. simple temp fix is to swap the left and right springs, and try shift weight over to the left.

3 - good idea if done correctly.

[royce]

try some toe in and then some toe out for the tracking problem

[djed]

yeah i have been thinking about kingpin shims. it didn't do the swivel hubs with a pull scale but it felt like 2-3 kg force to start things moving.

I have been thinking about put a steering damper / return to center spring on on the front tie rod end the help center up the tryes a bit after a turn and take some of the shock out of the steering. after the drive from between gympie and rainbow my arms are normally like jelly from clenching so much and trying to counter irregular steering.

also the adjustable castor bushes are currently only on 2 degrees. they have another 2 degrees of rotation left but pedders rekon it would twist my diff too much and i may start getting drive-line shutter for the angles. but i am not sure if can trust them as the car came back from a wheel alignment and the tie rod bar lossened itself after a few day. I had so much play in my steering i though my steering box was fucked

[alien]

regardless of the diff vibrations, give the caster correction a shot and see how it goes... if it fixes the steering but you get driveline vibes (will only occur in 4wd) then you know that correcting the caster is the fix and can get the mounts re-welded to suit.

[djed]

a few other suspension questions.

1 - have any of you guys had any experience with aluminum body lift blocks. I have heard they can help make a car less twitchy.

2 - Has any one had any experience with flexi-coil springs? i have heard they are pretty good and can help maintain wheel pressure on the unloaded wheel when the car is fully flexed

[alien]

no spring can claim to maintain pressure on an unloaded wheel... if its in the air its in the air =)

A lot of the jimny guys are running tough dog coils and liking them. try a search for "coily lift" or something and you'll get a feel for what people are using.

[coily96]

i wouldnt be worried about the road from tin can bay turn off to rainbow. I drove it with 200kg of camping gear in the back in the rain. Best i could do was 80kmh. Just a shit road. Dropping air to 20 helps.

[monley]

alien wrote:

no spring can claim to maintain pressure on an unloaded wheel... if its in the air its in the air =)

A lot of the jimny guys are running tough dog coils and liking them. try a search for "coily lift" or something and you'll get a feel for what people are using.

[alien]

eh? i thought you, dan and kyle were running them and liked them?

[2stroker]

I have never played with coily's but I have driven some horrific leafy's that have behaved as you describe. I don't know what brand tyres you are running or what the wear is like on them but it may be a good place to start looking. I have had tyres that have looked good but caused the vehicle to wander, track and feel uncomfortably unstable at highway speeds.

[ajsr]

I'd be checking the toe on the front wheels.
on some solid axle cars it can cause all kinds of wandering problems if theres not enough toe.

strangely enough with my swampers I had to take all the toe out

[djed]

Yeah I have kumho road venture my 30*9.5r15lt tyres about 95% new tread. I am not sure what the offset on the rims are. I think +10<17?? I used to run them at 30 psi but I dropped them down to 28 psi the other day before that road to see if there was a difference. It helped a little with the twichiness but the wind like effect / tracking / wandering effect was still there.

[Gwagensteve]

ajsr wrote:

I'd be checking the toe on the front wheels.
on some solid axle cars it can cause all kinds of wandering problems if theres not enough toe.

strangely enough with my swampers I had to take all the toe out

General theory is that crossply tyres need parallel toe. Toe on all my cars has always been parallel, by tape measure

Steve.

[djed]

[djed]

[Teracis]

djed wrote:

Yeah I have kumho road venture my 30*9.5r15lt tyres about 95% new tread. I am not sure what the offset on the rims are. I think +10<17?? I used to run them at 30 psi but I dropped them down to 28 psi the other day before that road to see if there was a difference. It helped a little with the twichiness but the wind like effect / tracking / wandering effect was still there.

When I bought my dual cab hilux it had a new set of these on it.

WORST TYRE I'VE EVER DRIVEN ON!

I swear they were dangerous, the thing would just get loose in the wet (even my old man thought so) and I know it was because the tail was light but it shouldn't have been that bad.

I put some mickey thompson FCII's on it and it changed completely!


Also, the noise you get with the hubs locked, check the front shaft uni joints, and the spline for play, I have a rooted front shaft and it makes a similar noise.

If there's play in it, that could be your issue, take it out and see if it goes away!

[djed]

yeah there is a bit of play in the spline and there rear uni. It is strange tho as i do not remember vibration with the hubs locked before i rotated the diff more to increase the castor. so I am not sure if the problem is from the balance / condition of unis

I have been doing a bit of reading regarding pinion angles. After rotating the diff the front uni joint looks straighter now and the rear one looks the same. think that might be the problem. I think both of the unis need to be on the same equal and opposite angles or both straight. not one straight and one on a slight angle.

I might have to get my mechanic to look at it before is get the the drive line balanced.

[Teracis]

I think you're right about the uni angles, the flange on the diff is supposed to be as close to the same plane as the output on the transfer as you can get it.

Else you can use a cv shaft to fix the problem.

[djed]

oh sorry one thing i forget to mention. When i was rotating the diff the drive-line spine slipped out. i put it back in however i had not marked the two hales before it separated.

I lined up the joints at each end so ends matched, however I had to rotate the shaft a bit to get it back together again.

I though this might have been the cause of the vibration if i got the uni's 180 degrees out of phase so i pulled the shaft apart again and rotated it 180 degrees but the vibrations were still there.

[Teracis]

djed wrote:

oh sorry one thing i forget to mention. When i was rotating the diff the drive-line spine slipped out. i put it back in however i had not marked the two hales before it separated.

I lined up the joints at each end so ends matched, however I had to rotate the shaft a bit to get it back together again.

I though this might have been the cause of the vibration if i got the uni's 180 degrees out of phase so i pulled the shaft apart again and rotated it 180 degrees but the vibrations were still there.

There should be a mark on both halves, all the ones I've seen have been a small . on the spline it's directly on the end of the shaft, on the other end it's near the end of the tube.

[djed]

ok i have been racking my mind about my driveline vibration problem about all the angles and the affect from the increase in castor from 2 degrees to 4 degrees. so i draw it out.

it makes sense that i must have affected the angle of the driveline (rear uni is on an angle, front uni is straight),

However i do not get how i did not have vibration before; both the rear and front unis would have been on opposing angles e.g. \----/
All the info on the net says the flanges need to be parallel e.g. /---/

Does anyone have experiance with drivelines? Is anyone running a double Cardan joint?

[djed]

i had a talk to a drive line specilist. Basacily there is not much i can easily do. as the suzuki while base is so short it is a catch 22 between increasing castor angle in a SJ80 to reduce bad tracking issues and increase font drive line vibration.

A double Cardan joint joint would fix the problem but they start at $800 plus there are no off the shelf fits for a suzuki.

With a 50 mm spring lift it looks like 2 degree castor is the maximum you can go without getting front driveline vibration over 60 kms.

I am going to reverse my castor back to 2 degrees and fit a return to center steering damper to help with the return to centre issues and the bump steer.

Long term i think i might look at getting custom control arms so i can get the castor that i want and fit rubber bushes to increase flex and stability

[djed]

hey guys i ended up taking my driveline off as the slip yoke joint looked like it had a bit of flex in it. I took it to a driveline specialist and they confirmed that the slip yoke is fuck but as so quoted me $550 to fix it plus extend my drive line about 10mm.

This is defiantly more then what I was looking to spend.

I guess i have 2 options:

1) i was thinking fitting a 13mm driveline spacer which might decrease the length that the slip yoke is disengaged (15mm) and reduce the amount of flex / vibration in my front drive shaft

2) look for a new drive shaft. Does anyone know if coilies and leafies have the same length front drive shaft?


Any advice or ideas ?

[Gwagensteve]

Coilers have a longer front driveshaft than a leaf sierra - it's about 40mm.

I've used coil front driveshafts in RUF leaf sierras

[djed]

Ah Shit.

Does anyone know some where you can get a coily front driveshaft around Brisbane?

[djed]

ok i got a drive shaft from the wreckers for $137. I fitted it this morning and it fixed the problem. no driveline vibration with the front hubs locked at 80km/hr. So now that i can run the 4 degrees castor with no driveline vibration i finally fitted my return to centre steering dampener..... the car drives like a dream. tracks so nice and feels realy stable.