Thread: V8 county ute

I need to lighten the rear spring rate.
Very jumpy on the corrugations

You need some droop. Are those shocks long enough?
I had some Bilsteins that looked like that, they did not have enough travel, for serious off road work.

You need a few things to get the rear to work well off road.
I have tried a few things like Koni 88 Long Travel, Bilstein 7100 12 and 14 shocks and stock travel.

Secondly though the springs have to be right 470 Lbs is a very high rate. I have tried 180 Lb (stock county) 270 and Ultra Flexi Coils in the back.
180 are too light with a functioning load leveler - good luck finding one.

270 should be pretty good in ute - but really cough up and pay for some flat ground progressives at each end. They work brilliantly.

Dump the anti roll bar whatever if you have them. They do all they can to inhibit flex.


Retain them both ends of the spring, you want the suspension to be stable. Land rovers of this ilk have far lower roll stiffness in the rear compared to the front - due to the design of the
front radial arm bushes and maybe weight of engine directly over the diff. Using dislocation cones reduces this stiffness by exactly half and one spring offers nothing as its disconnected during a roll action.
With un-retained rears the truck will stay stiff at the front and roll and bounce - to the point of instability - at the rear. You may loose some theoretical flex - but the machine needs to be stable. I used APT (top coil) and Les Richmond (bottom coil) parts to retain my rears.

I would suggest that gas charged ( I used Bilstein 7100) are much better for the rear too. They have an initial resistance before sliding which mitigates noticeably the land rover lurch of this era suspension.

You also need cranked arms to avoid tearing your radial arms bushes to shreds.
Shock mounts will need to be raised.

It's also good idea to get a maxi drive extended adjustable ball joint. This corrects the A arms and keeps them in the correct place.

Lastly the poly bush radial arms bushes act in a limited way as ball and socket joint with the bush and cap end cupped to naturally accommodate the arc with which the radial arm moves.

You don't have to go this far, but the classic rover rear suspension for off road work can be made to work very well indeed.

All of the above is getting its to move through a smooth longs arc not to quickly or slowly, without damaging itself and being compatible to the front in terms of roll stiffness.


Clive