[Savage Suzuki]

Hey guys, my 94 Sierra is leaning to one side, about an inch lower then the other side, it's been like it since I've bought so I'm not sure what the problem could be. But it's starting to annoy me and was wondering if anyone would know what the problem is??

[Bruce]

Welcome to the land of owning a Sierra.
It's a Sierra thing. They all do it in some way shape or form.
Reasons are one or all of the following, engine torque goes that way, battery sits on that side, 1 person sits on that side.

[Kor3y101]

The lovely Sierra Lean.
Not much you can do except replace the springs and leave more leaves in on the driver side. Or the aggressive approach by moving heavy things to the left to offset the lean.

Just one of many niggling issues you will come across.

[cairns27]

Just get them reset..Last time I got it done in Cairns, it cost me $480,drivers side set 20mm higher.
Read the paper for 1/2 hr then drove away brandnew.

bye

[Kor3y101]

^^ for that price, you can buy brand new springs.. And have change left over.

[Savage Suzuki]

But I swapped all springs from left side to the right side and it's still leaning on the same side

[pezz]

a sierra is a light car... thus having light spring rates..
now look at the drivers side of the car..
steering box, shaft, column, carbie, intake, battery, fuel tank, spare tyre and driver are all on the right hand side...

get the picture....

at the end of the day its a sierra... its not like its a expensive or attractive looking car..
who cars if it leans to one side...

[HarryHoudini]

Yeah,also the majority are LHD although Suzuki will have you believe they were engineered for RHD the LHD export market is the big one.
Holden ran into the same problem with the 1988 VN Wagon(LHD Opel),they had a bad lean which had to be engineered out with revised front struts and rear springs.

[MrRocky]

I run 5 springs on drivers front and 4 on passenger front.
Still leans on occasion but much better

[Gwagensteve]

HarryHoudini wrote:

Yeah,also the majority are LHD although Suzuki will have you believe they were engineered for RHD the LHD export market is the big one.
Holden ran into the same problem with the 1988 VN Wagon(LHD Opel),they had a bad lean which had to be engineered out with revised front struts and rear springs.

I don't know what suzuki has to say about the matter, but Sierras are 100% definitely engineered for RHD. They're also engineered as 660cc too, with the bigger engine and wider track primarily for export markets.

All the weight being on the RHS is partially a result of production expediency, partially due to copying the flat fender jeep, (which has more weight on the RHS) and was partially unavoidable, considering the driver is about 12% of the sprung weight of the car.

Let's use some examples.

The tailgate was engineered for RHD (parking on the left, therefore hinged on the right) From an engineering standpoint, the weight of the tyre needs to be closer to the hinges, putting it on the right, and additionally, putting the tyre behind the driver rather than behind the passenger is better for the driver's visibility. With the exhaust on the LHS of the engine, the fuel tank needed to be offset to the right to provide room for the tailpipe whilst avoiding a complex and expensive crossover. It also puts the exhaust as far away from the driver as possible.

Obviously, steering box, pedals, column etc are always going to add weight on the driver's side.

A significant cost on a cheap car is in copper wiring. Copper is expensive. Putting the alternator, starter, battery, and fuse box on the same side as the column and gauges reduces cost and simplifies assembly.

Putting the exhaust on the passenger's side of the motor keeps the heat away from the column and driver. This makes sense for RHD rather than LHD.

Putting the driver over the diffs, and offsetting the transfer makes the car easier to drive in difficult terrain as the drivers' head basically lines up with the diff centres, making the car easy to place. In this respect the Sierra is better engineered than the flat fender for RHD as the flat fender jeep had the diffs offset to the right despite being LHD, which is counterintuitive.

I'm still interested in how suzuki prevent the lean out of the factory. There isn't a significant or obvious difference between standard left and right front springs.. or is there?

[Qthefun]

Do Jimnys lean?

[Gwagensteve]

It's less significant. The weight distribution is more even and it's much easier to correct a small lean with a spring spacer due to the coil springs. Leaf springs are much harder to correct for small changes.

Steve.

[missmyljdaze]

years back, I had a DJ5 ex US postal service jeep.

It had an awful lean to the left, which I found was due to factory installed spacers [I presume they were factory issue as they had AMC stampings on them].

My DJ5 was spring under axle for the rear, and spring over axle for the front - so spacers were originally on left rear/front right only.

I swapped them to the opposite sides - and this corrected the lean so the Jeep was now level.


Perhaps a few spacers between springs and plates might help - how much thread is left to play with on the U bolts?

stephen

[alien]

Changing spacing isn't really ideal - more weight means you need a stiffer spring, and the sag is due to more weight, so in an ideal world the drivers side main leaves would be made from 7mm spring steel and the passenger side from 6mm or something, so they run at different rates.

[fordem]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I'm still interested in how suzuki prevent the lean out of the factory. There isn't a significant or obvious difference between standard left and right front springs.. or is there?

Picking a random SJ413 in the parts catalog shows a single part number being used for both left & right front springs, interestingly enough, the same vehicle had three different options, per side, for the rear.

[jordan00191]

My old sierra had a Lovell's 2 inch lift in it, and it was fantastic for nearly 2 years until the driver side also started to sag. Lovell's stuck to their 5 year warranty and replaced the springs and sent me free shocks as well, but its as pezz said..

Its a light car and a majority of things are on that side. Even though most decent spring manufacturers will have a dedicated driver and passenger side spring, it will eventually sag. Especially if such a light car has only a driver for majority of the time.

[Reubs]

fordem wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:

I'm still interested in how suzuki prevent the lean out of the factory. There isn't a significant or obvious difference between standard left and right front springs.. or is there?

Picking a random SJ413 in the parts catalog shows a single part number being used for both left & right front springs, interestingly enough, the same vehicle had three different options, per side, for the rear.

Original Coily Sierra rear springs have a different number of turns left vs right side. Never had a lean either.

[Chop]

I bet they rolled out the factory level!

[henno]

I'm not exactly up on Jimny stuff, but don't a few lift kits come marked 'left' and 'right' for that very reason?

[Qthefun]

I know when you build a "tuner" you steer away from left and right springs/shocks so would make sense that we might need left and right?!

[fordem]

henno wrote:

I'm not exactly up on Jimny stuff, but don't a few lift kits come marked 'left' and 'right' for that very reason?

This is not Jimny specific, OME generally marks their springs with a + & - , the + being the taller spring meant for the driver's side (which ever side that is), you will also find some vehicles come from the factory with taller springs on the driver's side.

[J--A--C--K]

OME do have a counter for the lean , when I had my kit fitted it was level but leaned over the next week , had to take it back so the could check sag ect and they swapped on of the springs out for a stiffer one that they apparently order and then send back the 5th Spring they don't use.
Any way I always thought it was the rears, cause when I went around wa I broke one and could only get blue packs in Geraldton in the near future and now I have a lean again.
For the record when I decided to pay some one to fit a lift kit it was years ago and befor I knew how easy it was lol.

[Gwagensteve]

OME do all the correction in the front AFAIK.

[J--A--C--K]

Fair enough I've never really looked into it , and I was originally under that impression from the arb reseller . Only changed my mind when I swapped out the rear springs .