Thread: army spring hangers

G'day Folks

The "Dumb Irons" are what are usually refered to when speaking about the front endings of a chassis, therefore, the front spring mountings on a Series Landrover, the Australian Military 2a Landrover has extended front spring hangers,along with a strengthened chassis, which was later manufactured by Landrover Coy in UK and marketed as the "1Ton Model".

To get the correct differential mounting and steering caster/camber you will have to fit those front mounts, or copies of them, if you are just looking for a raised suspension, I would suggest that you either use a military 2a chassis, or fit Parabolic Springs,(1-2 inch lift) as by just fitting the rear extended swinging shackle plates all it really does is to do part of the job, and change the steering geometry that give poor handlingand heavy steering

Hope that is of some help to you


cheers

By fitting the longer shackles to the rear of the springs and leaving the fronts original, you change the angle of the differential pinion realtive to the gearbox. This will wear out the universal joints more quickly. It will also increase the amount of castor. This will make the vehicle more want to go in a straight line, and make steering slightly harder. I would recommend that you either get a complete military chasis, or leave the spring shackles original. If you want raised suspension, fit raised springs.
On a slightly differend not, has anyone ever considered spring over axle suspension?
Aaron.

Hi there,
I'm in the (very slow) process of replicating the army "dumb irons" or Front of Front spring hangers on a stage one for exactly the reason you started the thread. I'll try and get some pics up for you.

Mine had army shackles on it when I bought it and parabolic springs. The steering was very heavy at slow speed but it self centred quite well on the highway and didn't wander much. The trouble was that it had thrown the front tailshaft before I got it and a new stage one shaft only lasted about 8 months before the centre-ing device in the double cardan joint flogged out. So I had to replace the shackles with standard civvy ones.

I decided to re-make the front of the chassis cause it had a bit of rust and with the army hangers and shackles the 34" Simexes will fit a bit better (I hope).

I have noted that there is more than one length of "long" spring shackle plate getting around, up to about 1/2" difference on some that I've changed. The civilian version of the long-hanger chassis is "SIII one-ton"

Andrew

Here's a couple of photos of the standard dumb iron and of the new outer plate that I copied from an army chassis. The spring will bolt through the lower hole when the job's finished.

Andrew

Originally Posted by andies landies

Here's a couple of photos of the standard dumb iron and of the new outer plate that I copied from an army chassis. The spring will bolt through the lower hole when the job's finished.

Andrew

Andrew

That is one of the better examples of modifications for the raised spring hangers.

When I get modivated I will crop that section out of the Rover Co engineering drawings of the S2B frame and post it to the site.

(In the front spring hangers the S2B frame is almost identical to the Au Military chassis apart from the presence of only 1 set of holes for the shackle pins.)

Diana

me thinks i may copy andrew. i just welded 3mm reinforment plates to the inside of the chassis rails. i did such a good job too, be a shame (as well as being hard) to cut them back off due to the amount of welds. will make a new template using my army series 3 chassis. i'd like to use it but i think it may have spent its life on the beach. does anyone know the price or availability of a new gavanised 1 ton chassis here in aus? cheers.

mick.

The hardest bit so far was making up dies to press the aprox. 1/8" outward step into the 5mm plate (army ones measure at about 4mm thick but it's not an easy gauge to buy). I milled up two lumps of steel and chucked it into the 100 ton press. I'm cheating on the two inside plates, I'll just use a thicker spacer to locate the spring out to it's correct position.

Andrew

Originally Posted by micksta323

me thinks i may copy andrew. i just welded 3mm reinforment plates to the inside of the chassis rails. i did such a good job too, be a shame (as well as being hard) to cut them back off due to the amount of welds. will make a new template using my army series 3 chassis. i'd like to use it but i think it may have spent its life on the beach. does anyone know the price or availability of a new gavanised 1 ton chassis here in aus? cheers.

mick.

Mick getting replacement chassis in Australia is a bit of a problem, mainly because the registration authorities maintain that the vehicle ID is the number stamped into the chassis and therefore a new chassis becomes a new vehicle. No one manufactures replacement chassis comercially in Oz.

Richards Chassis in the U.K. advertise a replacement 6 cyl 1 Ton chassis at £1,440 UK ($A3,076.00) before shipping. You can double the purchase price for the shipping.

Another issue is that the 1 Ton model was never sold in Oz and the only one known to arrive was a LHD prototype which arrived in 1973. It would be a case of having to have a standard 109" chassis number stamped into a 1 Ton chassis - something that Richards may be unwilling to do.

Diana