Thread: Defender spring rates and lengths?????

G'Day everyone,

Ive spent hours searching and noticed how flogged to death defender suspension has been brought up. However i still havent found the information im looking for.

I would like to know what 2 inch raised springs you use in your defender 110 or 130, their free lengths and their rates. There is lots of talk about springs but not much about what people are actually using.

Currently my 1996 130 is way to soft in the rear and possibly too hard in the front. Maybe it isnt but with soft rear springs it makes the front feel much harder. Trying to work out going off numbers on websites as to what spring to buy is a bit confusing. Especially as i dont know what i currently have.

The rear springs fitted by the previous owner are actually GQ patrol rears made by Ironman. Part number NISS010B. I cannot find the spring rate anywhere and 2 suppliers ive called cant help either. On the Ironman website it says its a performance spring 0-200kg.

The front springs i think are iron man too but there is no part numbers so i have no idea what they are but they feel quite firm. Nearly all the powder coating has fallen off but the paint thats left is the same colour as the rears.

My bump stop clearance in the rear is about 170mm and the front is 130mm. The part number from the front springs is gone so im unsure what they are. Because the previous owner had the tray fitted so low the car looks level with these bump stop clearances.

My front shocks are open length approx 630mm and the rears are about 635. I want a spring that wont dislocate on full droop. I will probably have to retain top and bottom just to make sure. I would like the front suspension to work as with the current set up the car handles terrible and flexes in the rear very easily and the front barely moves.

As for the weight of the car i have an alloy tray with a large fiberglass canopy which weighs about 150kg. I have a Davis Brown long range tank, bullbar, pto driven hydraulic winch with tank and filter mounted on the underside of the tray, air lockers, heaps of insulation inside the cab, aftermarket a/c and rock sliders. The car is driven 95% unloaded so big carrying capacity springs dont appeal to me. I generally only have 60 odd litres of fuel in the tanks too.

Any help or recommendations for which way to go with springs will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Michael.

Try to find yourself a set of coils with these specs. They will give you your desired lift and be inline with LR standard 130 coil rates (just longer).

Front 225 lbs/in, 17mm diameter, 475 mm free length (310mm compressed) equating to a 60mm lift

Rear 420 lbs/in, 22mm diameter, about 470mm free length (about 390 mm compressed) equating to a 40 mm lift. (the diameter might be reduced to 21mm to achieve the 420 lbs rate at that free length).

The rear might a little soft under load but should be comfortable without load. I went through the exercise with Dobinsons talking through various specifications and came up with these front numbers but my rear numbers are 470 lbs/in because i have a steel tray (reduced from 540 lbs/in in old coils). Les Richmond recommends 330 lbs/in for the rear but in a 130 with even a alloy tray i suspect will be too soft.

With the greatest respect your approach of simply asking what others do is the incorrect approach. The starting and ending spot is your own set up. It's a measurement that starts in your arse both in comfort and fear during cornering. Work out the specs/rates of your current coils and then tinker with the measurements to achieve the desired result. If you measure the wire diameter, free length and number of coils the suspension techs can tell you all the specs. That's how i did it with Dobinson's techs.

the caveat: the above specs are not off the shelf and will cost you as custom made coils. Up shot you will get a product closer to your needs than any off the shelf product will provide.

MLD