Thread: HELP! Anyone raised a PUMA? Big TROUBLE!!!

Originally Posted by newhue

TonC,
It's all pondering at present, but we plan to do a fair bit of desert and long haul travel in the future.
We are considering some sill tanks, and because the 130 is a long vehicle I was thinking it may need a 2" lift to keep the cars off road prowess. Now in the desert a sill tank banging on a dune doesn't matter, but we not opposed to sticking it into some rutted gully either on a weekends camping trip.

I like the feel of the original coils, and don't really want to replace it with a harsh one because I replaced the suspension.

Hi Jason,
I too drive a 130 and it has a sill tank, my home stomping ground is the Vic High Country, and while I no longer go looking for the hero tracks, I've never tuned back due to a lack of clearance.

Here is a link to a good list of Land Rover springs, it's been around for some time now so I don't know how current it is. I think the springs in your Puma are the same as my Tdi but I'm not 100% sure.
land rover spring specifications

Les Richmond have a good range with some long soft springs.
Coil Springs

How ever you set it up I hope it all works well for you.

Tony

All the aftermarket sill or belly tanks I have seen fitted have their bottoms almost level with the chassis rails so don't compromise ground clearance except in the most exteme situations. Here is a picture of the one on the drivers side of my D90 showing the chassis below the fitted tank:



I must admit that I haven't taken note of a sill tank fitted to a D130, however.

Cheers
KarlB

Originally Posted by KarlB

All the aftermarket sill or belly tanks I have seen fitted have their bottoms almost level with the chassis rails so don't compromise ground clearance except in the most exteme situations. Here is a picture of the one on the drivers side of my D90 showing the chassis below the fitted tank:



I must admit that I haven't taken note of a sill tank fitted to a D130, however.

Cheers
KarlB

The LRA one I have tapers up towards the sill, I'll grab a piccy later (if I remember)

I encountered similar problems to Povman but in reverse when I dropped my Puma 90 3 inches. The vibrations from the t/c were so bad that they nearly rattled the UV lights bars off of their chassis mountings.
When I took it back to the outfit that lowered it (no name, they were good in the end), they suggested 24 inch rims with pimping rubber, and apart from now having to slow down for speed bumps, I haven't had any problems since.

Interesting reading this thread, i have been playing quite a bit with puma suspension, interestingly enough my 130 has had a noise similar to what povman described and some vibs since new, without worrying to much about it i let it go waiting till the first service because it wasnt anything major, after fitting a bullbar the noise had almost gone and over time since then it stopped all together.... but since then i have had a bit of a play with the suspension and noticed that bringing it back up to the height from before the bullbar install has brought this noise back - remember i am only talking about the height the standard LR heavy duty springs in the 130 gave me.

After a bit of playing i found that the amount of noise was directly related to the height i had on the front end, and realised the sag from the bullbar initially was what stopped the sound the first time around not just the gearbox/tc wearing in as i had originally thought.

I have since pulled the front drive shaft out and the noise/vibs have completly disappeared, upon inspection of the drive shaft i have found some signs of minor binding and rubbing in the uni's which was supprising as i had never ran more then about 10mm over the height it sat at when i first picked it up. I was going to try a d2 shaft i had access to and after going to the trouble of pulling it out i found out about, as mentioned in this thread, the length difference...

After comparing a d2 shaft, a d1 shaft and the puma shaft i have to say the puma shaft looks like its just slapped together in a hurry, although they have bigger uni's they have alot less angle available compared to the other 2, which have scallops out of the flanges to avoid bind etc where the puma shaft has nothing like this done.

I am waiting on a new DC front shaft that i had already ordered a few weeks ago which i should hopefully have next week sometime, so i will see how i go and will post up what i have found.

Back to Povmans original post, i find it interesting that LR say they found a failed bearing, did they show you this at all? its more likely they just swapped the transfer and never bothered checking the old one at all, so ARB were probobly lumped with a bill to replace a transfercase that had nothing wrong as it was likely only the crap drive shafts LR supply all along causing the problem.

I have a 50mm lift and had a vibration around 90-110km/h.

Replaced the front prop shaft with a heavy duty, 30 degree, Bailey-Morris D/C unit - problem gone.

Now smooth as....

I'm thinking I might change out our prop shaft as well before our big trip..I have seen a post somewhere but where are people buying them from in the UK??? might take a look with the exchange rate..

Part numbers would be good also if anyone has them...save any confusion

Originally Posted by dullbird

I'm thinking I might change out our prop shaft as well before our big trip..I have seen a post somewhere but where are people buying them from in the UK??? might take a look with the exchange rate..

Part numbers would be good also if anyone has them...save any confusion

I have the bailey morris DC shaft, simple as giving them your year and model and VIN number and a week later it arrives.

Bit smaller joints but only time will tell, so far it feels great