Thread: Has anyone ever done a hydrolastic suspension to a coil spring Land Rover?

I have a 1968 hydrolastic Mini.
Trust me, you don't want to go there.

I knew Bill went through a tough patch. Is he OK?

BMC made that system far too detailed for their own good! Have you thought about keeping it really simple, and doing away with the coils all together? Run one upturned leaf spring on each side.. The ends of the leaf spring are U bolted to the axles, and the center of the now upturned spring is mounted to a pivoting shaft run through the chassis to the other spring. Weight is shared equally between both rear axles at all times, yet axle travel fore and aft is huge (only limited by body clearance or where you mount the bump stops. Opposing wheels on the 'bogie' assembly still have decent travel, only limited by spring flex.... Just a thought.

Bill is going ok as far as I know. He just doesnt come here any more. Ben, if the Germans can do independant, coil load sharing in the 40s Im sure it shouldn't be to hard to do live axle coil load sharing. ARB made dual axle trailers in the 90's for the Army, that had load sharing via bell cam and coil, these ran LR hubs....

Re the airbags, as I have said before, I have way to many things on the list to do before that. I have also heard from some people that the ride on dirt roads not as good as coils can give.

Originally Posted by uninformed

seems to be overly complex for what could be a good simple reliable coil set up. Shame Bill is not around here any more to chime in

imagine a 110 Land Rover with a second 110 rear axle mounted 40" behind the first.

If you are climbing over rocky steps as the middle axle gets to the step and climbs up it all the rear weight goes on the middle axle springs as the whole rear axle lifts off the ground once it gets to the extent of the suspension travel.



Now the image above is extreme*, but you get the idea, what I want is for both rear axles to share the load the majority of the time and particularly on road when braking.

* Its also a different manufacturer to mine which has Salisbury rear and Rover (through-drive) intermediate.

I didnt say load sharing was bad idea, just that air bags seemed to be the issue. I agree, you want load sharing

A post on here not so very long ago showed someone's efforts at putting Citroen suspension gear under a Land Rover.

Custom made Series II with Citroen suspension, Jag diffs, Inboard brakes, S/S chassis

Just in case it's an option.

And while looking for something I read on the web years ago about a load share rear suspension developed by some mob on the central coast, I came across the following which may or may not be interesting/relevant/understandable.

http://www.sv-jme.eu/data/upload/201...55_Chen_07.pdf

I worked for BMC back in the 60's as a mechanic. & service manager. With the Autin 1800's if you hit a big bump they would blow the hydrolastic unit because they didn't have a sway bar on yhe rear & the railing arms were long. The Morris 1100 which had a rear sway bar also blue units but not as often as the 1800 's . The mini were more robust & we rearly had to replace them. I think if you were going off road they would not be anygood. The MGY's have hydrolastic suspension & have a lot of trouble with there units & is very costly to repair & needs pumping up quite often I also have a mini I am restoring & have taken the hydrolastic out & fitted rubber cone suspension . All the mini's that race use rubber cone 's & not hydrolastic.

What did Bill do on his 6x6 2a?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZuJHchxpvQ