My buddy and I built a long arm kit for his TJ and not being a jeep guy I have a few questions.
I drew the arcs out on graph paper with short uppers and long lowers and as the axle droops it forces the pinion down. This is assuming both sides of the axle follow the same arc. When the bars are paralell and equal length the pinion angle never changes. Will this change when one side is stuffed and the other is drooped? I think the RE LA kit keeps the stock length uppers, so is this a problem with that kit? I know the heims do not absorb vibrations so we'll watch the arms close for cracks.
With the RE kit the front uppers attach to the long lowers like radius arms. The rear both upper and lower are long. It might tweak the pinion a little but I've heard of people running long lowers and short uppers, but why when you can just make mounts on the lowers for the uppers. And get the full benifets from long arm.
-Nate
Could we use the existing uppers we made? If we put a bracket on the lower arm for the heim then attach it to the stock upper axle mount? Then build an adjustable panhard bar? So technically it would go from a 5-link to a 3-link? Could we do this front and rear? Isthere a panhard bar in the rear too? As you can tell I don't know shit about jeeps or link suspentions
well in the front it's way easy to just do what you mentioned. In the rear you could just take the arms you have and make them longer and triangulate the rear suspension and lose the panhardbar all together. Lots of options, I don't know how the rear suspension compares to a ZJ but I know it's different not sure if you could do radius arms in the back, but I dont' see why not may require some bracket manipulation.
-Nate
well in the front it's way easy to just do what you mentioned. In the rear you could just take the arms you have and make them longer and triangulate the rear suspension and lose the panhardbar all together. Lots of options, I don't know how the rear suspension compares to a ZJ but I know it's different not sure if you could do radius arms in the back, but I dont' see why not may require some bracket manipulation.
-Nate
We didn't triangulate the rear because we didn't have time. We're hitting Moab soon. I guess we'll have to see how it works as is and change it up when we get back.
Personally I'll take long flexy leafs over links any day
If you attach the upper links to the lowers like the RE kit, you need to replace the heims with bushings for all the axle mounts. Otherwise you'll rip stuff apart.
Under articulation, a radius arm setup will be trying to "twist" the entire axle assembly. The bushings RE uses are big, soft rubber ones to absorb the misalignment necessary.
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