[hold-on-drover]

hello guys long time reader first time poster,

i have just bought a 1984 holden drover softy, its in pretty good nick considering its life on flinders island over the last 10 years, 150000 od kms too!

my first mod is a dry cell battery allong with some ARB/IPF Xtream sport spotlights mounted onto a modified hilux bullbar,

plans so far are 6-5-1? reduction gears and 32-33" tyres on 15x8 -25 sunraysias,

before i go down this track i would like to replace the 28 year old suspension

iv been looking at allot of different setups, spoa, ruf, plus hilux diffs ect,

this is my first 4x4 and plans for it are beach driving with some mud still letting me have some fun on the rocks,

drivability isnt y main concern as its only a 20 minute drive to work and i barley travel over 80kmh with 70% of the roads being gravel,


im thinking about a 2" suspension lift and possibly some climax style drop shackles .

i have also got acess to many wide track and 1l parts, is it worth swaping out my NT diffs for WT items or just a waist of time and effort, and is there much in the way of upgrades from either modles that i can use on my NT 1.3l?


sorry if i sound like a bit of a noob but i have searched and every thing i come up with seems pretty bloody major, anyways thank you and i look forward to hearing your opinions, thanks casey

[Gwagensteve]

Just out of interest, how did you come across drop shackles as a desirable part of your suspension setup?

Yes, swap to widetrack axles. Upgrade parts are more readily available, you'll gain stability and steering clearance.

If you can swap to WT axles, you can do a RUF conversion - some welding is required to do a WT in any case, so a small chassis extension isn't very hard to do whilst you are at it.

If you were planning drop shackles you would have already learnt you'd need longer shock mounts to make them work, so moving the shock mount and front bumpstop is also not much different than what you were already considering.

However, I know nothing about your terrain - you might be fine sticking with NT axles, a bolt in 2" suspension lift and just driving it. RUF etc is great for really hard terrain, but it's not necessary to have fun with a sierra.

Steve.

[hold-on-drover]

thanks for the reply, i think i'm going to go 2" lifted leafs and drop shackles,

what would be the best option for shocks at this stage, i'm happy to run shock hoops and invert my rear shocks at this stage aslong as it wont throw all my handling out the door,

iv herd allot of opinions about shocks but im worried that i may get something thats either too long or short,

thanks Casey

[Gwagensteve]

I assume in the week between your initial post and your reply you've done some research into drop shackles, and you still want them?

Many people who have run them don't bother any more. They don't actually do anything to make the car more capable. They will make setting up your suspension a much bigger job than it needs to be.

Anyway, if you have your heart set on them...

Only you can choose the correct length shocks for your car. Once you have chosen your springs, shackles and tyres, you'll need to start flexing the car up without shocks on it to determine how much guard cutting you are wiling to do and where to place your bumpstops to clear the tyres you are running. You will find that adding bumpstop spacing may not really improve tyre clearance on articulation as due to the drop shackles the compressed tyre can lever up quite high into the guard even with a bumpstop spacer.

Once you have the tyres cycling cleanly in the guards, then you can work out how much room you have for shocks and where you are going to put them. I don't know what "inverting" shocks means, it's babble that hilux owners use, but if you mean run a longer rear shock on a bigger angle, remember that this will make the shock less effective.

In the front, you are going to have zero room for any sort of longer shock mount if you stay NT. With your planned setup, the tyres and wheels you have planned will hit the stock shock mount even before you add the pointless droop of the whacky shackles. It's going to be very hard to fit a shock in there. If you swap to WT there's more room, but hoops are a PITA. Again, only hilux owners think they are cool. there is not enough room for hoops on a sierra with sierra axles.



There's some hoops on a WT with heavily offset rims. The tyre still wants to get into them, and AJSR had to spend ages reworking them to try and make them fit. He's also running a 75mm bump stop spacer. Remove that, and the mount would have to be 75mm higher with no chance of it missing the tyre.

So shock length and placement is the problem. The biggest problem you'll have once you have sorted that is finding shocks soft enough. Those Doetsch Tech shocks AJSR is running seem quite long and soft, then there's N76 OME's (which are currently on backorder) or Bilstein 5150's, which are also very long travel for their length.

You could also run garbage like RS9000's, which are available long and soft too.

There some stuff to chew over anyway.

Steve.

PS you haven't mentioned lockers. If you run lockers the floppy pointlessness of drop shackles is even more irrelevant, and you don't need to to all that shock work - drop in a nice simple 2" spring lift and get out there and drive it.

[boostedbrick]

If your at all worried about handling then don't use drop shackles. They can create allot of body roll and make hitting bumps on the road at speed an interesting experience.. My setup with a RUF is far more capable off and on road than when I ran front missing links..

Inboarding the rear shocks will affect body roll aswell, and work best with a heavy valved shock..

And as Gwagen has said, getting tyres to clear shock hoops is a PITA even on a WT.. I run 235/75s on a -13 rim and can't get full lock..

[Master_Butcher]

Gwagensteve wrote:

They don't actually do anything to make the car more capable.

I know I might seem like a no-one to you and anyone else but i strongly disagree with you here. thats a pretty silly thing to say mate. How could that possibly be true? not that i am for or against drop shackled but come on. Lets say he is driving 45 degrees through a rut without drop shackles he will lift a wheel therefore it will loss of traction. if he goes to the effort of installling them properly he will be able to articulate further in said hole with the chance of gaining traction. thats the way i see it anyway.

[Shansh]

the wheel will drop more, but because of the nature of drop shackles as i understand them, the wheel will be floppy when it bottoms out in the hole & any drive to that wheel would not be good drive because there is not as much downward pressure as from a normal set up

this just my understanding of how it would be, if im wrong, happy to be corrected

[alien]

Shansh wrote:

the wheel will drop more, but because of the nature of drop shackles as i understand them, the wheel will be floppy when it bottoms out in the hole & any drive to that wheel would not be good drive because there in not as much downward pressure as from a normal set up

this just my understanding of how it would be, if im wrong, happy to be corrected

you pretty much nailed it... it's unsprung droop, so the slightest amount of weight closes the shackle again rather than pushing the tyre into the ground. People with coil springs get the same effect if they dont have captive coils, past a certain point the coil comes "loose" and the axle flops down, but only once it touches the spring again will it have a downward force on it.

[Shansh]

nice to know i got it right

[Microwire]

alien wrote:

Shansh wrote:

the wheel will drop more, but because of the nature of drop shackles as i understand them, the wheel will be floppy when it bottoms out in the hole & any drive to that wheel would not be good drive because there in not as much downward pressure as from a normal set up

this just my understanding of how it would be, if im wrong, happy to be corrected

you pretty much nailed it... it's unsprung droop, so the slightest amount of weight closes the shackle again rather than pushing the tyre into the ground. People with coil springs get the same effect if they dont have captive coils, past a certain point the coil comes "loose" and the axle flops down, but only once it touches the spring again will it have a downward force on it.

Yeah I've got stock springs and longer shocks (with bumpstop extensions) and the extra drop that I get is kinda useless because there is no downward pressure. I know it's not drop schackles (or shackles at all for that matter) But what are drop shackles for apart from just more flex to impress your friends?

[alien]

they get you a much higher score on a ramp day...

[Microwire]

alien wrote:

they get you a much higher score on a ramp day...

So for an offroad weapon, they are pointless

[mnemonix]

The drop shackle argument is older than us all. Good too see all the right points have been raised here.
I bought my zook with drop shackles fitted. Off-road it "looked" awesome, all flexed up in a rut, but It was so unstable to drive.
When I removed the drop shackles and fitted stock ones, I was amazed at how much more capable it was off-road, and how much safer it felt. It might lift a wheel, but it always has solid points of contact on the ground.

[hold-on-drover]

thanks guys, i can see both points, the whole idea of having the "unsprung traction" sort of thing isn't something i would like,

plan is for the time being not to run lockers but i do plan on a front locker in the future,

whats my best option for leafs? iv been told to keep away from OME and Parabolic? would i be best to get some made up from my local springworks
or is there plenty of good off the shelf options.

thanks allot guys

[Gwagensteve]

Why have you been told to keep away from OME?

Steve.

[alien]

as for lockers, the rear locker is a better option before a front. TONS of info and arguments on that also if you do a search.

[mattybish]

a basic 2 inch lift with your choice of spring brand, standard shackles, a 1 or 2 inch body lift and some good 31 inch mud tyres will get you to most places with ease, my 1992 sierra out drove two 4 inch lifted, 33 inch tyred patrols over some serious sand and rock driving up the east coast last weekend, the little girl was snatching the patrols out of sticky situations all day. try it, it will surprise you and you wont lose any drivability!

[alien]

with 31" tyres comes other issues like being underpowered and needing reduction gears though.

to start with IMO you should run a rear airlocker, 2" springs and some 215/75r15 BFG KM2 or Kumho KL71... drive its ass off for a year or two and based on the terrain you find yourself driving modify the rest accordingly.

[SierraDan]

Lockers have gotten me stupid places with less than average wheel travel. I only desire more travel to help with stability in stupider places.