Changing the Height of a Defender

[Rickoz]

Hi Guys Muppet here when it comes to Defenders, Well on here are so many threads about Raising Defenders & the Issues that sometimes pop up with that.

Well if Raising a Defender Does this - What happens with a "Stock STD Defender" when you add a Bullbar, Rock/Tree Sliders, TowBar & then load it up with extra fuel, water & all the other items that we wish didn't weigh so much for a Weekend Away, Will all this extra weight that lowers the Defender Cause the same Issues as Raising one:confused:

[n plus one]

Hi Guys Muppet here when it comes to Defenders, Well on here are so many threads about Raising Defenders & the Issues that sometimes pop up with that.

Well if Raising a Defender Does this - What happens with a "Stock STD Defender" when you add a Bullbar, Rock/Tree Sliders, TowBar & then load it up with extra fuel, water & all the other items that we wish didn't weigh so much for a Weekend Away, Will all this extra weight that lowers the Defender Cause the same Issues as Raising one:confused:

No - lowering the vehicle reduces the drive shaft angles.

[Rickoz]

No - lowering the vehicle reduces the drive shaft angles.
Kool:BigThumb:

[mools]

What happens with a "Stock STD Defender" when you add a Bullbar, Rock/Tree Sliders, TowBar & ......

N plus one's got your answer but longer term your springs will start to sag (prematurely). When that happens they can become a bit of a bind to drive - i.e. the handling suffers but because its a creep effect you probably won't realise just how bad until you address the issue. Eventually you'll want to think about putting something a bit more HD (at least up front) to cope better with the extra weight long term. That said mine was fine for years but when it started to sag it did so rapidly.

Ian.

[ozrob]

Hi Guys Muppet here when it comes to Defenders, Well on here are so many threads about Raising Defenders & the Issues that sometimes pop up with that.

Well if Raising a Defender Does this - What happens with a "Stock STD Defender" when you add a Bullbar, Rock/Tree Sliders, TowBar & then load it up with extra fuel, water & all the other items that we wish didn't weigh so much for a Weekend Away, Will all this extra weight that lowers the Defender Cause the same Issues as Raising one:confused:
Good question Rickoz,
I have just put a ARB bullbar and winch with steel cable on my MY 13 110 Defender, the front end is 40mm lower than the rear, thus a set of 130 front speings are in order to be fitted eventually.

[Reads90]

When we used to play around with land rovers back 25 years ago when where they weren't called defenders and +2 coils weren't really about. We used to play with this chart and change the coils for other model coils which would the still keep the car level when added all the toys and stop the car hitting the tyres in the wheel arch.

Have a look here at the chats for all the different standard height coils

http://www.red90.ca/rovers/springinfo.html

Ali

[ProjectDirector]

When we used to play around with land rovers back 25 years ago when where they weren't called defenders and +2 coils weren't really about. We used to play with this chart and change the coils for other model coils which would the still keep the car level when added all the toys and stop the car hitting the tyres in the wheel arch.

Have a look here at the chats for all the different standard height coils

http://www.red90.ca/rovers/springinfo.html

Ali

Mmmm, I just had my front springs replaced by MCL with HD due to winch and bar weight and they are both yellow/white. According to your table they should be different. I wonder if it is a mistake from their behalf or it was intentional. Also they gave back the original ones and they are both yellow/yellow.
?????

[Reads90]

Mmmm, I just had my front springs replaced by MCL with HD due to winch and bar weight and they are both yellow/white. According to your table they should be different. I wonder if it is a mistake from their behalf or it was intentional. Also they gave back the original ones and they are both yellow/yellow.
?????

Drivers side are always heavier than the passenger side.

This is why even when you buy OME or Dobinsons they are labeled for passenger side and drivers side.

Front and rear

[ProjectDirector]

Drivers side are always heavier than the passenger side.

This is why even when you buy OME or Dobinsons they are labeled for passenger side and drivers side.

Front and rear

In this case they put the heaviest on both sides

[Reads90]

In this case they put the heaviest on both sides

Mmm

[ProjectDirector]

Mmm

BTW it was the LR dealer that changed them and what's interesting the originals are exact same as I mentioned before. Another LR quirk:)

[Dougal]

Drivers side are always heavier than the passenger side.

This is why even when you buy OME or Dobinsons they are labeled for passenger side and drivers side.

Front and rear

Says who?
Mine has always had the slightly longer springs on the passengers side. They compensate for the camber of the road to make the vehicle sit more level.

[DeeJay]

Says who?
Mine has always had the slightly longer springs on the passengers side. They compensate for the camber of the road to make the vehicle sit more level.

Wouldn't he mean heavier - as in higher tensile- rather than longer?
My understanding is the passenger side is slightly longer & driver side heavier duty to compensate for driver weight..

[Reads90]

Wouldn't he mean heavier - as in higher tensile- rather than longer?
My understanding is the passenger side is slightly longer & driver side heavier duty to compensate for driver weight..

Yeah that what I mean

[Dougal]

Wouldn't he mean heavier - as in higher tensile- rather than longer?
My understanding is the passenger side is slightly longer & driver side heavier duty to compensate for driver weight..

All the springs are going to be made from the same tensile strength wire and have the same material stiffness.

The possible differences are the number of coils and the length. The spring rate is always the same on either side of an axle, otherwise you'll get some really undesirable ride and handling problems.

This leaves us with the length. Which is always factory fitted longer on the passenger side to compensate for road camber.
The "carry the drivers weight" thing is an old wives tale which keeps getting repeated but fails every logic test and is inconsistent with every factory vehicle setup.

[Bush65]

In my experience with rovers, the passenger to driver side springs, are usually longer on the driver side, but otherwise identical spring rate.

Some aftermarket springs also follow that convention, while on the other hand some are identical P/S & D/S.

Over time it is very common for the driver's side to sag more than the passenger side. I have never noticed any sag more on the passenger side, not saying it can't happen if the vehicle was consistently loaded more on that side (and I am aware that land rovers have the motor and gearbox offset to the left).

Over the years I have done many spring swaps than I care to count, and it is surprising the difference in height/sag of the D/S spring after relatively short periods of use. If I put used springs back in, I always select the longer one to go in the driver side, and that is usually opposite to how they came out.

I don't see any good reason for putting a longer spring on the passenger side to compensate for road camber. Why would you want to?

IMHO the potential for greater sag on the driver's side is the only reason for using different spring heights when new.

[Dougal]

My 85 RRC always had a significant sag to the drivers side (1-2 inches). Most of the classic rangies of this period did.
In the US, despite the drivers being on the other side, they still lean to the right. Giving material for all sorts of fat wife jokes.

In my 85 I traced this lean to not the springs, but the front axle and radius arms. The radius arm brackets on the front axle were misaligned. If I jacked up the chassis the axle did not hang level. If I removed the axle, the radius arm on the right side of the axle would point higher. Swapping the radius arms from side to side made no difference.

For years I fought this with an extra 1" spacer on the spring. But then I fitted axles from a 97 discovery. By then landrover appeared to have sorted out their radius arm brackets.
This 97 axle had both radius arms sitting level. If I jacked up the vehicle on the chassis the axle hung straight.

And since then with equal length springs the vehicle sits level. The springs I have now have what I presume is natural variation in length of about 10mm. I put these in the LHS.
I level my EAS rangie to be 5-10mm lower on the RHS (measuring these is not an exact science).
Every japanese car I've owned sits 5-10mm lower on the RHS. I haven't measured the euro, it's seldom in the garage.

[ugu80]

I had Dobinsons springs fitted to my 300tdi 130 at Dobinsons own dealership at Narrellan in South West Sydney. The drivers side springs are 10mm longer than the passenger side to account for driver weight. This was told to me by the Dobinson people and was shown to me when measuring the fitment as they want to driver side to be 10mm higher after fitting the springs. When I got in to the driver seat, the sag was around 10mm (no fat comments please; all right, I'm 110 kgs).

I was after comfort, not lift, and after discussing what I was going to do (accessories) the result over my standard 130, the lift was 25mm front and 45mm rear (unladen). After fitting a front b/bar and wire rope winch to the front and 60 litre Engel, 2nd spare, 2nd battery and roof top tent to the tub the lift became 15mm front and 35mm rear. When loaded for a trip I have, over standard, 15mm front and 20mm - 25mm (depending on load) rear.