StuntmanAd

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Is this do-able? Unbolting the axle from the leaf springs and simply mounting it the otherside of the springs for a few inches of increased height. I've heard of it done on things like the Suzuki SJs but was wondering if there was any reason it can't be done.



Thanks, Adam
 
Its called 'spring Over Axle' or SOA; do a search on it, its been oft asked, and generally concluded to NOT be a good idea.
Gives extreme 'lift', but no more clerance under the axle, so mot many "pro's"
While on the "Cons'" side, you get loads of maledies.
Main attraction is it 'looks' easy, and actually inverting the spring saddles to go SOA isn't that hard, but having done so you have HUGE hassles to sort out, starting with very awkward prop angles and steering link clerance & flex probs.
Next up, you loose LOADS of axle location, so they wobble around like bluggery, demanding lots of control links to keep them pointing in vaguely the right direction, which would actually be easier to arrange going coils.
and that is on top of the reduced stability from raising the center of gravity by around three to four inches, on a narrow track series axle.
Basically its 'doable', but to do it properly, there's easier ways of achieving the same thing; while doing it 'down and dirty' could be just plain lethal!
 
my mate did it on his series and unless you put a rollcage in it and prep to roll on every meeting its not worth it best thing hes done is the biggest tyres 235 85 16s and goes well rather than do the axle of you need more height better to do a body lift
 
Cheers Teflon for the indepth answer. What is the easier way to gain such increases?
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Being brutal...... Buy a defender, and mess with that.

Before making such extreme mods though, you really ought to be asking, in big letters.....

WHY?

Lifting landies is trendy..... trouble is its done most often simply becouse 'thats what every-one does'.... without much thought for what lifting oine is actually doing.

First off, go up, go out. As you lift the chassis further from the floor, so you raise the Center of gravity, so to maintain the same base / height ratio you need to increase the track width to compensate to some degree for the added instability.

Series Landies have a 4" narrower track than a coiler, so are at a dissadvantage before you even begin; adding wheel-spacers and wider offset rims wont even get you the track a Deffy has as standard.

Next, lifting the suspension only puts more space under teh chassis. It improves the aproach and departure angles a little, and helps the break-out angle, but the axle clerance isn't any improved.

Meanwhile the raised CofG is giving you more dissadvantages as it is advantages. Look at comp-trials buggies, and they are kept pretty low; advantages of lower cofG for stability FAR outweigh the small advantages of extra clerance, in FAR more circumstances.

So, unless you have REALLY got to the point where you are out-driving your series, there is usually little real reason for going for a mega-lift, and IF you HAVE got to that point, then really you are better off looking at moving on to a coiler, rather than muggering about with the old series.

That nugget absorbed; PRACTICALLY, for a little more capability, best things to do to a leafer are fit bigger ytres/ wheels. 235/85R16's on wider offset eight-spoke or modular wheels work well, but any 32" tyre would do, really, and that's about as big as you can practically go without more convoluted mods.

After that, parabolics give ABOUT a 2" lift, on top of the 1.5" you'll have gained from bigger wheels, which will be most usefully under the diff-pan.

If you want to go to tha 'max' after that, then with a LOT of thought and consideration, and more than a little crafting and fabrication, you can go to 'One-Ton' sping hangers and extended shackles, which with wider angle props and corrected steering arms, will give you about another 2" of lift, and on THAT you can run 900 or 37" tyres, that give you about another 2.5" of lift, again, most usefully under the axle

BUT at that tyre size, steering lock is starting to get severely limited while advantages of added articulation are deminished by the tyres fouling on the chassis before you reach it...... more reason for spacers and wide offset rims...... but again, still no where near as much extra track or clerance as you'd get from a standard coiler.......

Basically anything can be done, but going MUCH beyond 32" rubber and paras on a leafer, and you are into the realms where the gains dont REALLY warrant the effort, and you'd be FAR better messing with a coiler.....

That IS of course if you are actually going down the right path to begin with, and the mods are actually worth-while, in finding you 'real' improvements where you are pushing the car into places that are really beyond its capability......

Pretty amazing where you can actually get a standard leafer, and time and again well driven old series humble fully equipped 'extreme' coilers on events and at P&P's.

And my advice for a leafer is always leave it as close as possible to standard, and use it as a training tool. WHEN you start getting stuck becouse the car GENUINELY has run out of capability, rather than you have done something daft, THEN you might start looking for mild mods, or a coiler...... for which the same advice applies..... and when you start getting THAT stuck purely becouse its lacking ability, rather than a daft driver, THEN you might start looking at mods and whether the pro's and cons of them are worth it..........

Leafers are great devices, and for years, while coilers were too expensive to be messed with, modding them made some kind of sense, unfortunately these days, with many more cheaper more easily messed with 90's about, the limitations inherent in a leafer REALLY dont make them a good choice to do all that much to.

The coilers have much more capability as standard, can be taken much further, more easily beyond standard, and are far better supported by way of bits to do it all with.

It's REALLY not worth mucking about with leafers to that degree any more. Hence why the Rangie or Disco based 'Hybrid' has become the defacto tool for competition.
 
Thanks alot for the answers guys. Expensive suspension mods are out of my budget for the time being. Think I'll get hold of some mud tyres and just enjoy the thing as it is :)
 
Thanks alot for the answers guys. Expensive suspension mods are out of my budget for the time being. Think I'll get hold of some mud tyres and just enjoy the thing as it is :)

good man:D you'll be surprised how good the clearance is already on a series, we went out with a bunch of lifted discos and an extreme monster fourtrak and went every where that they went;)
 
Being brutal...... Buy a defender, and mess with that.

Before making such extreme mods though, you really ought to be asking, in big letters.....

WHY?

Lifting landies is trendy..... trouble is its done most often simply becouse 'thats what every-one does'.... without much thought for what lifting oine is actually doing.

First off, go up, go out. As you lift the chassis further from the floor, so you raise the Center of gravity, so to maintain the same base / height ratio you need to increase the track width to compensate to some degree for the added instability.

Series Landies have a 4" narrower track than a coiler, so are at a dissadvantage before you even begin; adding wheel-spacers and wider offset rims wont even get you the track a Deffy has as standard.

Next, lifting the suspension only puts more space under teh chassis. It improves the aproach and departure angles a little, and helps the break-out angle, but the axle clerance isn't any improved.

Meanwhile the raised CofG is giving you more dissadvantages as it is advantages. Look at comp-trials buggies, and they are kept pretty low; advantages of lower cofG for stability FAR outweigh the small advantages of extra clerance, in FAR more circumstances.

So, unless you have REALLY got to the point where you are out-driving your series, there is usually little real reason for going for a mega-lift, and IF you HAVE got to that point, then really you are better off looking at moving on to a coiler, rather than muggering about with the old series.

That nugget absorbed; PRACTICALLY, for a little more capability, best things to do to a leafer are fit bigger ytres/ wheels. 235/85R16's on wider offset eight-spoke or modular wheels work well, but any 32" tyre would do, really, and that's about as big as you can practically go without more convoluted mods.

After that, parabolics give ABOUT a 2" lift, on top of the 1.5" you'll have gained from bigger wheels, which will be most usefully under the diff-pan.

If you want to go to tha 'max' after that, then with a LOT of thought and consideration, and more than a little crafting and fabrication, you can go to 'One-Ton' sping hangers and extended shackles, which with wider angle props and corrected steering arms, will give you about another 2" of lift, and on THAT you can run 900 or 37" tyres, that give you about another 2.5" of lift, again, most usefully under the axle

BUT at that tyre size, steering lock is starting to get severely limited while advantages of added articulation are deminished by the tyres fouling on the chassis before you reach it...... more reason for spacers and wide offset rims...... but again, still no where near as much extra track or clerance as you'd get from a standard coiler.......


Basically anything can be done, but going MUCH beyond 32" rubber and paras on a leafer, and you are into the realms where the gains dont REALLY warrant the effort, and you'd be FAR better messing with a coiler.....

That IS of course if you are actually going down the right path to begin with, and the mods are actually worth-while, in finding you 'real' improvements where you are pushing the car into places that are really beyond its capability......

Pretty amazing where you can actually get a standard leafer, and time and again well driven old series humble fully equipped 'extreme' coilers on events and at P&P's.

And my advice for a leafer is always leave it as close as possible to standard, and use it as a training tool. WHEN you start getting stuck becouse the car GENUINELY has run out of capability, rather than you have done something daft, THEN you might start looking for mild mods, or a coiler...... for which the same advice applies..... and when you start getting THAT stuck purely becouse its lacking ability, rather than a daft driver, THEN you might start looking at mods and whether the pro's and cons of them are worth it..........

Leafers are great devices, and for years, while coilers were too expensive to be messed with, modding them made some kind of sense, unfortunately these days, with many more cheaper more easily messed with 90's about, the limitations inherent in a leafer REALLY dont make them a good choice to do all that much to.

The coilers have much more capability as standard, can be taken much further, more easily beyond standard, and are far better supported by way of bits to do it all with.

It's REALLY not worth mucking about with leafers to that degree any more. Hence why the Rangie or Disco based 'Hybrid' has become the defacto tool for competition.

no where near as much clearance as a standard coiler?? corrected me if i'm wrong but standard defender was 235/75, but most people go up to a 7.50 or 235/85or 265/75 which are almost the same size. would that not give it LESS ground clearance than a series on 900??
 
lets hope spyderman doesnt have a read of this :D

to the OP, spyder has an x reg series III running 900's and it is a brute off road - because of the clearance you get from tyres of that size. i dont know what other mods have been done to it, but the sucker is bloody capable!
 
no where near as much clearance as a standard coiler?? corrected me if i'm wrong but standard defender was 235/75, but most people go up to a 7.50 or 235/85or 265/75 which are almost the same size. would that not give it LESS ground clearance than a series on 900??

You took the time to re-format the post very carefully.... shame you didn't READ what I said as carefully.......

'Clearance' is a term that applies wherever parts might come into contact... like steering clerances or wheel clerances, even valve clerances, NOT just axle clerance under the car!

Yes, 900's give MUCH more AXLE clerance than 600's or 750's.... I would have thought THAT was obviouse..... but a series axle that's 4" narrower than a coiler DOESN'T have as much clerance AROUND the wheel for steering or suspension movement as a wider coiler one........... geez..... and people wonder why my posts are so long winded!
 
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