Thread: Lowering a Defender

Originally Posted by mitch

how will this happen? shorter springs wont change the position of the bumpstops...

cheers- mitch

No it wont... But, firstly the car shouldnt sit on them anyway and **if** your articulation keeps hitting them, replace the bump stops with -1" or -2" depending on how short your springs go.

Bump stops simply bolt onto the chassis. If you cant find any shorter ones, take them off and take a hack-saw to them... Or if you dont like that idea, you could buy a length of 3mm rubber off ebay and make your own (layers of 3mm rubber on top of each other with 2 wholes through for the bolt holes into the chassis).

Chances are if you go -1" or -2" the springs will be stiffer and the chances of hitting the bump stops now and again shouldnt be a problem.

For the record I would only drop it to about -1.5" although you need to make sure you can get -1.5" dampers!

The other thing that springs to mind (pardon the pun) - Have a word with King Springs, they are based in OZ and will make bespoke, one off springs - that would mean you could have top quality springs exactly how you want...

I'm sure there are lots out there with a set of sagged springs they'd like to pass along.

Problem now is finding or making up a set that are equally sagged.

My 130 will fit under 2.1, pretty sure it won't fit 2.2. My 120" would just fit 1.95, which meant I could get into any of the local carparks.

Cheers
Simon

any decent spring works can re-set the springs to a lower free length for a nominal fee.

Waaay back in the day, the skin flint racers used to throw their RX-3 and Capri springs in the oven at maximum temp for a few hours. Works the same, except they'll continue to sag over time.........

You could just go out and pick up a set of Discovery weekday wheels and keep the taller Defender wheels for the weekend, that'd probably just about do it.

Cheers
Simon

Originally Posted by abaddonxi

You could just go out and pick up a set of Discovery weekday wheels and keep the taller Defender wheels for the weekend, that'd probably just about do it.

Cheers
Simon

excellent idea, a 29" wheel vs a 32" one gives you 1.5" reduced ride height and awesome acceleration for the traffic light GP....

except the bloody laws now state a tyre can't be +/-15mm of original fitment.
It should be damn %, not a number, as 15mm is a hell of a lot of difference on a 10" (old) Mini wheel vs a 32" 235/85/16....
OK, we get away with it on our old jalopies, but who would be game to risk their insurance on a new Defender ?

I couldn't get our car in the garage or the car park in the city. So we fitted standard 110 springs to the car. It dropped it from 2050mm to about 1990mm. That 6 cm enabled us to get into the garage with the tank empty as well as full. Also the car park was a lot less nerve racking. The unexpected bonus was the ride was heaps better

The only downside was it wasn't as good for heavy loads, but normal camping was fine.

Since fitting the larger fuel tank we've just been running the standards as the extra weight means the car still fits in the garage.

Originally Posted by rick130

excellent idea, a 29" wheel vs a 32" one gives you 1.5" reduced ride height and awesome acceleration for the traffic light GP....

except the bloody laws now state a tyre can't be +/-15mm of original fitment.
It should be damn %, not a number, as 15mm is a hell of a lot of difference on a 10" (old) Mini wheel vs a 32" 235/85/16....
OK, we get away with it on our old jalopies, but who would be game to risk their insurance on a new Defender ?

Curse those lawmakers.

I knew it was the case for putting on larger wheels, but really, who would want midget clown tyres?

Or those wheels that make your bicycle bump up and gown.

G'wan you know want them.

Cheers
Simon

Originally Posted by abaddonxi

I'm sure there are lots out there with a set of sagged springs they'd like to pass along.

I'm waaay ahead of you on that one...