Thread: Let's talk about Defender rear coil options

Derek,
Have you driven a coiler with polyairs in the rear?
Certainly dont write them off. For your situation they seem a perfect tool. Leave them at bugger all psi and your ride will be as it is now ("Unladen the defender is fine")
And then when you load up put in the 30psi and away you go.
Id throw polys into the current springs and drive them for a bit to see how you go.

No metal only spring will give the variablity of ride height / spring rate that you can get out of compressed air!!!

Steve

Well a call to King Springs today saved me a lot of work on the weekend. No points swapping the coils over from the Tdi and see how they go in the Puma. I now know why the Tdi rides so harsh - 470 lbs/in linear rear coils

I'm now thinking the 330 lbs/in HD springs are the go and then if I do need any more for towing I'll think about the polyairs.

Hi Derek, what about converting completly to airbags? I'm looking at changing out the springs in my 110 for airbags as I find it too harsh when empty, but I don't want to fit softer springs as it will suffer when I load it up for trips out of town.

Cheers,

Tim

Thought about it Tim but it's an expensive option and I don't know of anyone who's done this. I'm also not sure how well the airbags go over lots and lots of dirt road travel. I suspect the bags themselves are fine but on a Defender the rear suspension is terribly exposed to the elements - dirt, rocks, etc - and I think this may be potentially harmful. I wouldn't want one failing. This is also a concern for me with the Polyairs too.

Apart from the cost, (I was quoted $1375), the wear thing is a bit of a concern, but if they survive on the back of trucks they can't be too bad. Also if you puncture one you can repair them with a rope type tyre repair kit, (so long as the hole isn't huge).

Just remember most of the trucks are also on sealed roads too. So how resilient would the airbags be on dirt and gravel for hundreds of kilometres at a time.

not bad, thats what the loggers run these days and Ive got countless thousands of kilometers up in R series macks on what you might call a road if you were being generous.

Loggers also run CTI... now that would be nice

Truck bags are lot heavier duty than the 4WD variant though and also potentially less exposed, but that depends on the vehicle.