Horton, driveshaft opinions wanted

[blazinzuk]

Now I wheeled Horton quite alot with the cab and bedsides on.

Actually not very long with the bedsides on, you see to get them on there so they looked nice and lined up it kind of made them very vulnerable to rocks.

They caught on a couple rocks and I nearly destroyed them. I think the bedsides make the look of the truck really so I removed them entirely and went like this for a while

Those pics above are from a fateful trip. We went to South Dakota to run the trails up around Hal Johns, we ran several trails up that way and I further came to realize that technical rock crawling is my favorite form of wheeling, while I enjoy other things such as trail riding and exploring a lot my likes lean towards the more hard core stuff. Horton was just to freaking wide.

Such as this pic demonstrates

At this point I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But I knew I wanted to get narrower, not a ton narrower but 5-6" would make all the difference in the world

 

[blazinzuk]

I guess I should mention at some point I traded a guy my 42s for some stuff and traded another guy said stuff for his 44s still Pit Bull Rockers.

Here are a couple pics with the 44s on

Now realize this images were before I put my big winch on and stuff and you may notice in the above pics I am back down to 42s.

I found the extra weight and width of the 44s to be more detrimental to the wheeling I do than advantageous.

Horton looked super cool with em on, but I kept on breaking axle shafts, no fun. No fun at all. I wanted Horton to be reliable and I did not have the cash to drop on a set of chro mos and drive flanges

 

[blazinzuk]

At this particular juncture in my life I was trying to make a go of things at an off road shop. I had partnered with a friend of mine and things were going very very poorly. I was pretty sure we would be out of business in the near future.

Well a deal fell through and we ended up with 8 sticks of DOM 1.75 tube. My partner kept on talking about cutting his current cage off and using the DOM to rebuild it. Since he already had a cage and I did not I decided to do something drastic

 

[blazinzuk]

My wife at the time was pregenant with our second child, so a cab truck was not going to work anymore. I needed a back seat. The only way to do that was to swap everything into a blazer I had or realize some of my goals with Horton and make him a bit skinnier.

So the cage building started.

I started by cleaning up some of the edges done by the boatsides, in this build I consider the boatsides an integral part of the cage build

I put fishplates on the frame where the boatside braces mount to the frame to make them as strong as possible but to keep it as light as possible

I found some seats from a Grand Cherokee for free and a TJ back seat and started bending tube

 

[blazinzuk]

More tube

Back seat and new mounting location for the gas tank

More tube

 

[blazinzuk]

New battery mounting tray

And pretty much the finished product which is Hortons current state

At this point I decided to put the bedsides back on because without them the truck was just ugly. Simple fact of life, the bedsides made it look like a Chevy still and I really like that. I had also made them over a foot narrower where they mount so the chance of hitting them was greatly reduced

At this point I headed to Blazer Bash 2010

 

[Deuling]

Cool Posts eric. I don't know anything about optimas but why mount it sideways? Just curious

 

[tRustyK5]

Cool to finally read the story and see the evolution step by step.

I gotta ask though, are there times you miss having a windshield?

 

[blazinzuk]

Cool Posts eric. I don't know anything about optimas but why mount it sideways? Just curious

Was easier to run the cables plus I didn't want the passengers feet possibly hitting both terminals with something and shorting everything.

Optimas you can mount in any orientation just like with any other AGM or gel cell battery

 

[tRustyK5]

Cool Posts eric. I don't know anything about optimas but why mount it sideways? Just curious

Because you can...duh.

 

[blazinzuk]

Cool to finally read the story and see the evolution step by step.

I gotta ask though, are there times you miss having a windshield?

Nope, my wife misses it sometimes. You don't get dusty rolling down a trail, dust never gets higher than the tires, everything just flows through the cab you don't have the low pressure spot a windsheild causes.

I did forget my goggles at blazer bash this year and driving home from area BFE in a pretty decent rain storm did bring the suck. I usually have a bandanna and goggles on like alot of motorcycle riders wear.


I do plan though to close off the rear passenger area a bit more. Going to use pretty thing sheetmetal ( like 20 gauge) just for a bit more protection for Bailey and Sawyer

 

[blazinzuk]

So there are several things I want to get accomplished this year.

Lets talk suspension. Looks like I will be getting some full hydro stuff to go on Horton. I can put it on with the leaf springs because its currently on a truck with leafs. This is going to allow me to move the axle a bit more forward like I have wanted to for a while.

So with my budget coils ( unless I can get down to Utah and do some work for a guy and get his coilovers) is where its at.

So I know what I am going to do with the front, the rear is where I am not sure.

The bedsides are staying on and I like where they sit and the overall look right now, so none of that is going to change. I am thinking of staying with leaves in the rear. Building an antiwrap bar and eventually switching to a set of deavers and spring sliders where I can tuck the springs up alot more. Basically the front spring mounts would be frenched into the frame, and the rear would not have a shackle just a slider.

What you guys think?

I have also thought about linking the rear and keeping the leaf springs.

Which brings me to the real question. Horton is amazingly stable. I know coils will be less stable but is keeping leaves in the rear going to help with stability?

Whatever new suspension I build in the front will be a cross in between what a desert race truck has ( tons of uptravel) and a pure rockcrawler ( not so much up travel) I plan on about 35% uptravel and 65% down. I wanna go fast. Hence if I keep the rear leaves the plan for Deavers.

So give me your opinions and experiences

 

[folkenheath]

By the time you build a traction bar and slider for the leaves you could of just built two more links instead, and ditched the leaves. I thought I was happy with the leaves in the back but now I plan on ditching them again. It's just a matter of when.

If you don't want to spend the money on coilovers you could just do seperate coils for cheap. Theres more room in the back so it's easier to package.

Nice work by the way, I like the way the cage looks like it belongs on the rig.

 

[Smokinthehippies]

What abut air shocks? Or is it just too heavy?

 

[blazinzuk]

By the time you build a traction bar and slider for the leaves you could of just built two more links instead, and ditched the leaves. I thought I was happy with the leaves in the back but now I plan on ditching them again. It's just a matter of when.

If you don't want to spend the money on coilovers you could just do seperate coils for cheap. Theres more room in the back so it's easier to package.

Nice work by the way, I like the way the cage looks like it belongs on the rig.

Thanks Heath. The whole reason for keeping the leafs in the rear is for overall stability. With custom leaves and a good traction bar I will be into the rear suspension about as much as coils and links. Thats why I suggested keeping the leafs and linking the rear and still using the leafs. I have been in a couple of Toyotas with rear leafs and very setup front suspensions ( desert race type) and the leafs out back keep up with the front. I know a stock leaf spring will not work for what I want to do but a custom spring should be able to accomplish it.


So what do you thing about the stability issue Heath?

What abut air shocks? Or is it just too heavy?

Never have liked air shocks, they work fine and would probably work just fine in the rear of Horton. Except at the dunes. Air shocks on a heavy rig like mine would end up getting pretty hot and fading out after a couple hours. Since the dunes is most of the reason this suspension will have some go fast characteristics. I want to be able to flog it in the dunes hour after hour and not have too much fading out.

If I do run leaves in the rear I will run a very good shock. Not immediately but soon.

 

[folkenheath]

To tell you the truth I have wondered a lot about how much my rear leaves contribute to the stability of my truck. I feel like it handles pretty well offroad and on the street and I am happy with it, except the rear can't keep up at 50 MPH over the whoops. I do get concerned with excessive roll when I switch to a rear triangulated 4 link, but I think I can make it worth with the adjustability it will have.

I have tried disconnecting one of my radius arm upper links to eliminate the bind, and that didn't really effect it much on the street. Roll was the same, so I leave it hooked up for more strength and axle wrap control.

Also, when I increased my rear shackle angle and got longer shackles, my rear softened up some, but I didn't really notice a difference in handling on the street.

One thing that did make a HUGE difference is the location of the dual rate stop. If the dual rate stop is close to the lower spring at ride height, the truck rides much more stable and flat on the street, roll can be darn near eliminated as far as regular driving goes. However, at speed offroad it definitely get's stiffer. I ended up putting the dual rate back up some for the softer ride and just deal with the body role since it isn't excessive anyway.

I can't really answer your question because I haven't done it yet and I wonder the same thing myself. But I think with the adjustability of coilovers you can probably get it to work the way you want I bet. Everything is a compromise right, just where do you want it to be.

I am sure you have driven some of the linked front and rear vehicles, what did you think?

You could always add a sway bar, you can adjust the bar stiffness, and the arm length to get the amount of control you want, then you have yet another tuning point.

 

[blazinzuk]

From what I have seen and driven, a rig with leafs all the way around is the most stable rig out there.

Even when you are talking high dollar rigs with the coil overs properly tuned in swaybars and bumps all working correctly.

Hence the reason I want to discuss keeping the rear leafs. Its not really cost that is going to make me keep em, the cost of deavers and a traction bar and very good shocks is going to approach if not surpass links and coils with a lesser shock.

Of course the caveat to all this is you can make a rig with leafs less stable by inboarding the springs more, introducing more body roll.

I did one time see a Jeep with links all the way around and leaf springs, you wanna talk about a stable rig, he had a guy with him with a nearly identical Jeep and this guy had coilovers, other than flat out articulation and approach and departure angles I would have taken the leaf spring Jeep any day of the week. He took me for a ride and I was amazed.

That was quite a few years ago though.

When I get closer to doing it I will probably have some very thorough conversations with leaf spring manufactures.

But right now I really do think I am leaning towards leafs in the rear, probably going to change the shackle to a slider but thats about it for now.

This is of course all conjuncture as I will be redoing the front suspension first.

 

[blazinzuk]

I do like the tuneablitity of links but to a lesser extent leaves can be tuned too.

First step to this is to get an accurate weight measurement which can be hard to do.

Custom springs are the first step in tuning leaf springs. Which is pretty much the same as all the round springs. That starts making coilovers more attractive for the mere fact the round part ( spring) is easily tunable, whereby in a coil or leaf you have to be dead on the first time or it gets very expensive.

 

[Deuling]

Tis a sign lol
http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=289378

 

[folkenheath]

Is this slider you are referring to something that is readily available, I have never seen a leaf spring on a slider that I know of, but it sounds like it would work well just maybe have more maintanance and cost depending on how the contact points of the slider are built. I also feel like it would limit articulation because the shackle pivoting at the frame end would allow more spring movement side to side than a slider in a fixed (laterally) position. It also eliminates one bushing I am assuming, or moves it to a different spot.


If you do links with leaves are you going to put a slider and/or shackle at both ends of the leaves then for less bind?

My leaves are gone, the clock is ticking, I just don't know how long it will be ticking.