Front 4 Link

crown14

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May 11, 2006
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Clayton, NC
DSCN0123.jpg




You have to imagine the "wristing" action.

I'd guess you could get every inch of a 14in shock with them.

Yeah I think you would have to mount 14in shocks outside of the springs, but you are right. These would have been a nice touch to the setup I had on my yellow truck with the X-jointed RTE rear links.
 

fishEH

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Jan 26, 2009
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Lake Villa, IL
lunchbox said:
The joint at the midpoint of the arm will help with binding. You'll get plenty of flex from those. You could get a hair more if you jointed the frame mounts too. I'd guess you could get every inch of a 14in shock with them. I'm getting all of my 12in with narrowed and lengthened arms now.
IDK, it seems there would be a lot of twisting force applied to that bolt on the arm under the axle. I would think adding a heim there in addition to the one on the top would free up a lot of movement. No?
 

p m

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lunchbox said:
The joint at the midpoint of the arm will help with binding.
Nope it will not, at least not any more than stock rubber bushings in the arms.
There is no wristing action, Joel. The joint and two bushings form a triangle that does not articulate (any more than stock rubber bushings in the arms).
The heim joint in this arm only serves as a convenient, off-the-shelf, substitute for a turnbuckle.
All in all, these arms are probably the worst design of rover hardware I've seen. The "adjustability" cannot even be an excuse for, say, going from 3" to 5" lift.

Every once in a blue moon Dan Chapman displays a very good conviction, even if he muddies it with other shit. This time, I mean this one - "heim joints have no place in a street-driven vehicle."
I have an adjustable Panhard rod with a heim joint in one end - don't remember when exactly did I buy it, methinks about a year ago, but the joint is already sloppy. The open heims I have in rear trailing arms have to be replaced on a regular basis - count on ~$70 a year. This is on a SoCal truck - no mud, very little rain.
I can't imaging having heim joints controlling caster of my front axle.
 

KyleT

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Mar 28, 2007
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crown14 said:
yes I believe the idea is to preserve the proper radius arm geometry but still allow more flex than the factory mounting setup- they obviously won't allow ridiculous front flex like a 3 link but will perform better than factory radius arms or even caster corrected arms

anti squat is not flex.

the factory geometry has extremely high anti squat (the resistance to nose dive in braking)

a result of that is when you climb, the axle wants to "lift" or unload the front of the truck making it feel/be unstable or light feeling.

When i calculated a D2 front anti squat, it was around 127%. 100% being all forces "equal".
 

crown14

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May 11, 2006
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Clayton, NC
Now THIS is discussion! Forgive me, I had nothing to do with the design of these things whatsoever, I haven't even seen them in action much less ran them on a truck, so I have as little to go on as any of us. Looking at them yesterday induced a headache. This morning I think I figured it out.

p m said:
Nope it will not, at least not any more than stock rubber bushings in the arms.
There is no wristing action, Joel. The joint and two bushings form a triangle that does not articulate (any more than stock rubber bushings in the arms).

Seemed to me that the flex advantage, if any, has to be related to the fact that with the factory setup you have TWO rubber bushings that give a little between the axle and the radius arm, here you have only the ONE. Wristing action is a pretty poor term but I think these are not as rigid/stiff as the factory design. Of course, one alone would be really stupid, it isn't like the rear where you can get away with one because there is a top link (the A frame)... If you thought the factory arms weren't good enough then attacking this aspect of them might seem a little backwards, and it is, but I think the point is that this was a different approach that had never been done before and like Jake mentioned earlier, it would result in the patterns being made for front 3 link brackets down the road.


p m said:
The heim joint in this arm only serves as a convenient, off-the-shelf, substitute for a turnbuckle.

Pretty much. But since the heim never moves much at all it should a lot longer to wear out than one in a panhard rod or say in the end of a shock. But yes I agree, once it finally does wear out its probably gonna pop every time you give it throttle or let off. And it will suck. But replacements will be cheap and you can probably get greaseable ones.

I will sell them if anyone is interested :D It will be a while before my next build is far enough along to make good use of them.
 

seventyfive

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Jan 3, 2010
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over there
joel,
keep in mind all manufacturers use rubber bushings to complement suspension and braking. its like when you put new traction struts on an E39, you want to load the wheel as much as possible (almost raise that corner off the lift arm) before you tighten it down...which results in helping the shock to slow down the rebound effect, much like what kyle was talking about, the rubber bushings help keep the body flatter (almost squatting the vehicle) under hard braking. when you eliminate any added rebound component from suspension, you are now relying almost solely on the front shocks and springs to counteract the momentum. you would be very surprised how much race car suspension geometry is applicable to off road vehicles. i know you know most of this.
whenever you let a vehicles suspension 'hang' on the lift and tighten down control arms (radius/trailing) arms you are actually adding pre load which is to say when you hit a bump there is more stored energy in the rebound action than absorption, causing unexpected 'bump'.

what kyle is saying is, which he obviously has tracked a car, when you tap the brakes the truck will be way over biased to the front loosening the rear, it will also be very squirrely down hill.
 
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p m

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Joel - exactly my thoughts.
Replacements for heims aren't all that expensive, but... you'll have to replace them, while doing all you can to keep the geometry intact.
 

wheelen disco

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Jun 20, 2010
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Those things are going to get rid of tons of anti squat, better off road but will make for some hairy panicked stops on the pavement. They should make the front end more "planted" while climbing as it won't lift as much. I wouldn't sell these things to your average bolt on and go customer.
 

crown14

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May 11, 2006
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Clayton, NC
To be fair, a panic stop in any 3+ inch lifted disco 1/RRC is hairy.

edit- perhaps that isn't such a fair statement, I have a tendency to run really heavy tires on steel wheels so my opinions on stopping a lifted truck might be a little different
 
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KyleT

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Mar 28, 2007
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you will gain a flex advantage by having a rubber bushing where the heim joint is.

you will also have a flex advantage by moving the uppers at the axle inward from parallel. IE jeep Cherokee long arm esque.

AS is dive. it is backwards for the front. AS prevents dive from braking on front suspension, AS prevents squat on acceleration on rear axles.

I have 60% is AS on the front and it is not hairy at all on the road/highway/whatever. But i do keep in mind that it doesnt have swaybars and just drive a little more defensively.

Off road, it climbs with no comparison. off camber pucker is all but gone, zero tippy feeling. Downhill is great too, but it does have a pretty low rear AS as far as I could calculate as well. Never gets the rear feels like it wants to overtake the front. my lifted 4runner before was this way thoug, I am certain that if i panic stopped, the rear tires would actually leave the ground...

the only complaint from the wife I get when she drives it is that it feels "wobbly" when it turns.
IE it has some body roll.

and FWIW, i NEVER preload bushings unless it specifically calls for it in the manual. everything is tightened and torqued at ride height.

as a straight bolt on design, it is workable, but what the advantage really is, I don't know.
 

DennyDoler

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Mar 27, 2007
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I think I have some photos of this on the trail. I'll see if I can dig them up. Looks kinda skecthy when they're installed.
 

fishEH

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Jake1996D1 said:
Where did they pull that number from?? These things better really do the trick with that price tag attached..
I'll give you a hint: Its round and smells like dookie.
And by all accounts these arms don't do much besides change pinion angle.
 

Jake1996D1

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Mar 28, 2011
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West Des Moines IA
fishEH said:
I'll give you a hint: Its round and smells like dookie.
And by all accounts these arms don't do much besides change pinion angle.

Oh I know the answer I was wondering if Joel knew the answer as well..

I mean come on it's a rovertym trailing arm with some crap welded and bolted to it...

the trailing arms retail for $325... so this means 4 custom cut plates, 2 heim joint, 2 short pieces of dom, the mounts, some bolts and 15 more mins worth of welding cost $575??

They must either A. do not like making these or B. do not want to sell that many sets of them.
 

crown14

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May 11, 2006
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Clayton, NC
No they aren't just trailing arms, these are completely different. Look similar but definitely not the same patterns used. Yes the ends are the same but thats it.

But yeah $900 is wild.