Thread: Wandering steering after 2 inch Spring lift. Whats your thoughts guys?

Originally Posted by rick130

That sounds vaguely sexual....

I guess it is. The steering is rooted hahahahaha

Cranked radius arms are the best fix, heaps of suppliers do them.
I went Superior Engineering front and rear along with a steering damper reloaction kit and adjustable damper. The car now handles well ( as well as a 20 year old lifted 4wd can ) and has great flex, the only issue is a very slight vibration through the front drive shaft so it tends to wear out uni joints faster than it should but they are easy to replace

Originally Posted by discomatt69

Cranked radius arms are the best fix, heaps of suppliers do them.
I went Superior Engineering front and rear along with a steering damper reloaction kit and adjustable damper. The car now handles well ( as well as a 20 year old lifted 4wd can ) and has great flex, the only issue is a very slight vibration through the front drive shaft so it tends to wear out uni joints faster than it should but they are easy to replace

Isnt that a side effect of the cranked arms as well as those offset bushes?
Where drilling the swivels does not do that?

Strange how different D1's can tolerate the same amount of lift differently.
Mine is about 2 inch lift and steers ok at all speeds with no intervention other than to make sure the wheel alignment is correct - done by me, not a shop
maybe the lift has highlighted some wear in steering componentry, and is the WA correct?

As you lift the D1 up the gearbox gets higher changing the angle from diff to gearbox. Especially at the front.
When that happens it also twists the diff a little changing the caster.
Cranked arms or offset bushes or drilled swivels all attempt to fix this to some extent.
A lot of people say you can do a 2 inch lift on a D1 without adjusting any of this. I noticed a difference though.

Yes I get all that.
But in this case the amount of instability seems extreme rather than 'noticable'.
Perhaps mine is just under 2 inches of lift with everything else being tight at the front.
Perhaps Wedgies is just over 2 inches of lift and there is some undetected wear in the front-could make a lot of difference.

Originally Posted by DAMINK

....
A lot of people say you can do a 2 inch lift on a D1 without adjusting any of this. I noticed a difference though.

I was talking to LRA some time back, I wanted new dampers for my hard riding D1, then we got (actually I did) onto the idea of new springs too(I can't believe how cheap they are now compared to 20 years or so ago).

.. anyhow, they reckon a 2" lift on a D1 shouldn't need suspension correction. (ie. caster correction).
I'm thinking along the same lines as eddo ... could be soft or slightly worn radius arm bushes and or swivel preload or a combination of a few minor wearing all combining to cause a major problem.

Some minor problem that wasn't so obvious before the lift, but now with the change in geometry due to the lift has exaggerated the issue.

I had a 2" lift on my RRC years back, never had wandering problems, but when I changed my springs(I got 40mm lift all up once it all settled), I changed all the major bushes that used to cause me grief repeatedly with polys.
all three radius arm bushes, 2x diff ends and the 1 chassis end on each side, and the rear trailing arm chassis end bush .. all polys, with the 2" lift.
No caster correction, and never wandered.

Originally Posted by DAMINK

Isnt that a side effect of the cranked arms as well as those offset bushes?
Where drilling the swivels does not do that?

Not sure on all the exact geometry but as far as I am aware the cranked arms fix the caster issue so the car tracks better and isn't vague and wandering but the angle from the TC down to the diff is still increased and it is that angle that causes the vibration and extra uni wear.
This is why some people modify the front drive shaft and do a double carden (spelling?) from a Disco 2, I have never bothered as its now only a bush toy and the vibration is not that bad.
Since doing the caster correction arms it is a lot nicer to drive and it won't flog out bushes all the time like offset bushes do