Thread: flex the 101

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

Grover ........I am a steyr Damiler Puch fan and have driven a pinz and followed one around many times.
I learnt how to drive in a Halfinger.
The haffie in the movie .........call of the wild ......was my old mans.
so I know the deal.
The point I was getting ,the the pinz is heavy reliant on the lockers.
The 101 kills the pinz for power and torque.
The portals kill the 101 for diff clearence .
Both vehicles lack wheel travel.
Yes the 101 needs lockers because of the above.( currently got one on the back and getting one on the front)
The 101 is easier to work on (in general terms) and very light with high payload etc.
Low low of the 101 is 78 to one ...so very similar.
Both vehicles in the real world have the same gradiblitly.
Yes it comes back to personal views and real world requirements.
The vehicle I think tops both vehicles is the Tatra 503 4x4.
It has a 3.5 litre air cooled v8, portals ,lockers and the compack forward control lay out.
I dont think there is any in australia.
The back bone chassis and swing axles was copied from Tatra.
Also in the real world I find a cruiser or patrol with lift and lockers and crawer gears is very hard to stop with light loads.
The main thing is to remember is the volvo 303 s , landy 101s, and steyrs tatras and the like were doing it for miltiary when the jap 4wds were still using three speed gearboxes and and alot of these vehicles are still doing
it decades later.
ron
.

Well said And yes the back bone is derived from Tatra...even if the Pinzgauer is harder to work on being military it is still easier then most thats the brillient part of all of the above mentioned vehicles they are built properly to a excessive budget! I like to think our Pinz wont give us too many dramas ...And the Haflingers are a great little off roader! very fun!

Playing around at Easter on the family property.
this is about as good as the flex on a 101 gets.
[ame=http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p299/101Ron/?action=view&current=CLIP0066.flv][/ame]

Its better than a D3.

Very impresive

The weather was half OK today and I needed to post some thing so the 101 fan club wouldnt get bored.
Gazz in WA mentioned the rear shocks in a101 limit rear wheel drop .
I had to check his out for myself.
as said before the 101 is a good piece of gear off road ,but lacks wheel travel and so it picks up wheels when needed most.
I removed the nuts holding the lower rear shocks to the axle tube and measured the bump stop clearence and shocker upwards travel.
140mm on both .....so no problems there.
The downwards travel of the shock was only 56mm as what Gazz had indicated.
The question is how would longer travel shocks affect the wheel travel of a 101 if fitted and what effects do standard shocks have on 101 off road performance.

I disconnected the rear shocks and went for a drive to one of my test places.......a nice ditch to lift wheels on.
With the lockers my 101 delivers the goods traction wise . but I know from experience a flexible suspension means a stable vehicle with less chance off roll overs and better performance.
The 101 is a bit front end heavy being a forward control vehicle and so if the front axle finds a wobat hole on one side .the vehicle will follow and want to tip over.

The same spot I drive my 130 defender over and it is hassle free.
The Defender also has a similar payload and it just flexes over nice and level.
My 101 has had the front sway bar removed years ago.
The 101 is unladen.
This what I found.

These pics are at the same spot without moving the vehicle.
The 101 has two wheels taking the weight with the rear right completely off the ground to try and max out spring ,bump stop and shocker travel.



Front left with good front flex and shocker bottomed out at max travel

Front right bottomed out on bump stop.

The front is working very well and the fact is any more flex would break the the twin front leaf parabolic springs.
The rear is a different story.