I have seen several trucks run a forked arm on one side and a single arm on the other on the front axle. I am curious as to how well this works on the street. My truck is a daily driver and I am considering switching over to this design. I want to run poly bushing on the forked side and rubber bushing on the single side to try and prevent axle wrap. With my current set up I get some pretty wicked axle wrap on acceleration and dive under braking. I am hoping that this forked setup will retain the flex while stopping the axle wrap. Some suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oh if it matters it's a d-90. There are some pics of it somewhere on this board if someone needs them to make a response

-ben

Originally posted by m016324
I have seen several trucks run a forked arm on one side and a single arm on the other on the front axle. I am curious as to how well this works on the street. My truck is a daily driver and I am considering switching over to this design.

Look around early Broncos for "wristed radius arms". That's what you just described--I've got that on both ends of my crawler.

With Aerostar coils at all four corners, 44's, and full width axles, if you aren't used to it, it's scary on the street. If you *are* used to it, it's not bad, but it won't handle well.

The fix for it being scary, is to put in another link on the side that just has one single arm--put in a forked link there too, and it works like a swaybar. Take off the secondary link for mad flex. There's a lot of different ways that guys do that on the EB's, my own truck has (had--some parts are missing now) telescoping locking links on the "single link" side, so I can lock it down and make it handle better. Some guys have gone so far ($$$) as to do it with a hydro cylinder instead.

There's a lot of pics of my stuff in http://www.rockstomper.com/images/products/custom/shopjunk/hybrid if you want to browse images.

that seems very similar to a hinged arm and I've all ready tried that venue. I am curious if the poly bushings on one side of the axle are going to be stiff enough to prevent axle wrap. I am impressed by the arms that you are running on your bronco, but I am trying to do something a little different. I'm guessing it can't be much worse than the current setup I have in emergency braking a switch lanes pretty quickly and off-road my front axle wraps pretty well even with my puny V-8 and a kicker shock. Thanks for the info scott hope to get some more replies soon

-ben

Originally posted by m016324
that seems very similar to a hinged arm and I've all ready tried that venue. I am curious if the poly bushings on one side of the axle are going to be stiff enough to prevent axle wrap. I am impressed by the arms that you are running on your bronco

Neat... it's been a jeep, a bronco, a buggy, a S10, and a toyota so far. I guess I succeeded in making something unrecognizable. :)

Poly bushings are a must--I run all poly, on all my joints. Poly on the wrap control side, prevents wrap.

hey scott those are some great pics and i really like the suspension on the rig. but i have a few questions.

the hydro rams ontop of the coils, why did you use a double ended ram? how often do you find yourself using the rams? do you think the aerostars are too soft? what would you change if you did it over again?

thanks :beer:

Originally posted by 9-Volt
the hydro rams ontop of the coils, why did you use a double ended ram? how often do you find yourself using the rams? do you think the aerostars are too soft? what would you change if you did it over again?

Hydro rams on top of the coils? What? There's no hydro rams there. There's big circletrack style weight jacks (height adjusters) but they're just a flange on a threaded adjuster. I adjust them about once every three months... or twice so far since they were installed, to compensate for when I screw up my springs from flipping it or something, since I'm too cheap/busy/lazy/whatever to go buy more $5 apiece Aerostar junkyard coils.

The Aerostar coils are very nicely soft enough for what I do with it. I wouldn't go softer, but I don't think I'd go more than about 10-20% stiffer.

Change? I wouldn't put Boggers on it.
I would've put the D60 in at day one.
I'm thinking about shortening the wheelbase--maybe move the rear axle about 8" forward.
Fool injection--the carb kinda sucks at 45 degrees sidehilled. Sucks worse at 60-70 degrees sideways. Won't run on its side at all. Mostly little stuff.
I might also consider not handing the keys to friends and/or employees and letting them roll it too.

ahhhhh i see, i thought those were rams! heheh. how much adjustment do those circle track things have in them, and how much do they cost?

would you change anything in the suspension if you were to do it again? aside from link sizes, i know you had some bending problems.

Originally posted by 9-Volt
ahhhhh i see, i thought those were rams! heheh. how much adjustment do those circle track things have in them, and how much do they cost?

About eight inches each corner. I made them. I think they cost me about $10 for the set of four. :) I'm not sure if you can buy them readily--if you can, they're probably around $15-20 a corner.

would you change anything in the suspension if you were to do it again? aside from link sizes, i know you had some bending problems.

Change the suspension? Nope. I'm very happy with it now that it doesn't bend any more, but it took a few iterations to deal with the wrap torque available at 170:1 with 44's.

yeah i see what you mean, i plan on doing mine with 1.25od .250wall tube with 80:1 and a SBC on 42s. how did you make the height adjusters, was it overly complicated?

Originally posted by 9-Volt
yeah i see what you mean, i plan on doing mine with 1.25od .250wall tube with 80:1 and a SBC on 42s. how did you make the height adjusters, was it overly complicated?

If you're doing radius arms out of 1.25 0.250, you're screwed. They'll fold. I folded arms twice that strong. If you're doing a four-link that way, you're in much better shape, as there's no bending load (assuming you don't land on 'em) on four-link linkage.

The height adjusters are every bit as complicated as they look. Weld a piece of 1" ID tube vertically to wherever you want it. Weld a flange to a piece of 1" all thread. Thread a nut down toward the flange, then stick the all thread up through the vertical tube on the frame. Run another nut down on top of it to lock it into place. Weld a third nut to the top end so you have something to grab to turn it. Even Joe Dirt can do it. :)

How you attach the coil to the flange, is your problem (and contingent on what coils you use). I don't think Aerostar coils are stiff enough for anything with a V8--if anything, I might want to stiffen my front coils, and I'm running a Toy four-popper.

If you look carefully at the pics of my adjusters, you'll probably see that there's more pieces involved than the ones I noted in my last post--mostly for easier fabrication, or for specific location issues. Look very closely, and you can copy them inch-by-inch.

Want to gain some ramp points? Leave the top locking nut loose, so the pads can drop away (but make sure they can't drop out), but I personally think it's pointless, so mine are locked down. Even as restricted as my suspension is, I still manage a measly six or seven feet of twisted-up flex.

cool, thanks scott. so what would you reccomend for running radius arms on a heavier front end than yours? 1.5" OD? what wall thickness?

the adjusters sound damned cool. now that you explained them, they are damned simple and DIRT cheap heheh.

in my suspension, i would be running aerostars on the rear end which is significantly lighter than the front. on the front i would be running range rover rear coil springs.

the target weight for my truck is under 4000 pounds, but it will be a challenge. stock the thing weighs 3000, and i am bobbing about 18" off the back of it. stock they also have some heavy ass thick leafs front and rear, and the coil setup should be lighter. but i will also be running a heavier drivetrain, so we'll see. how much does your rig weigh?

Originally posted by 9-Volt
cool, thanks scott. so what would you reccomend for running radius arms on a heavier front end than yours? 1.5" OD? what wall thickness?

1.75" minimum, and I'm running 0.500 wall. 0.375 would be plenty. On something heavier, I'd lean towards 1.875 or 2", and minimum 0.250, but 0.375 wall would be great too.

the adjusters sound damned cool. now that you explained them, they are damned simple and DIRT cheap heheh.

I did it that way 'cause I didn't know how high/low the suspension was going to sit, and didn't want to commit to a fixed perch height on a custom suspension.

the target weight for my truck is under 4000 pounds, but it will be a challenge. how much does your rig weigh?

With everything on and ready to rock-n-roll, 4100 pounds. 44's, D60/9", half a body, two thirds of a frame, etc. I'm about out of stuff to cut off. That's with a Toy four popper, aluminum five speed, aluminum transfer cases, Toyota sheetmetal (not much of that, either), 1.5" tube cage....

thanks, i think i might be able to meet my 4000 pound goal, cause i am running an all aluminum very hacked up body. the only steel part on the body only weighs about 40lbs and thats the bare firewall!

the SBC weighs about the same as the stock four banger, but stock it had an aluminum tcase and tranny so i will pick up a bit of weight there.

i like the idea of the adjusters because it would allow me to adjust ride height bsaed on how much weight i am carrying in the back, and also how high (or low) i want the body for a specific trail. cause i would imagine that its just a simple case of putting a impact on the adjuster nut and screwing it in our out to the desired height, right?

i will definetly have to look into this a lot more. you arent at all worried about the strength of the 1" threaded rod?

9V: I was researching front suspensions for my 76 chevy and came across this thread.

If your still interested, I used receiver hitch tubing for my upper coil mounts on my rear suspension. You can see more at www.alaskaoffroad.com (http://www.alaskaoffroad.com) Look in the left hand nav bar under the "Suspension" link.

The advantages I see over the threaded rod is that all you have to do is jack up under the bumper and pull the pin, jack up some more, and put the pin back in. Its pretty quick, and doesnt make noise. If it did make noise, cause of the slop between the two tubes, it would be easy to add a jack bolt to the side of the female tube to take the slack out. I used 1/4" wall tubing cause that is what I had, but it would be plenty strong if I was to use 1/8 or 3/16". That is what I will use on the front.