Trewey

Trewey

Cockernee, Pasty munchin bastid.
To be honest, my main motivation for wanting to lift me deepender was for the looks. Yes, there are some minor advantages to be gained when off-roading, but in many many years of landy driving, I'd never got stuck or failed to get to where I wanted to go for the lack of a lift.

Anyway, after much reading up on various forums, I was convinced that a 2" lift was simply a case of fitting the relevant springs and shocks, and no further modifications were necessary.

I was sooooo wrong.

Yes, my Landy is 16 years / 93,000 miles old and many of the components were old and tired. However, it can't be coincidence that so many parts failed / detriorated quickly after fitting the lift..

Rear trailing arm bushes and body mounts.
Radius arm bushes and body mounts.
Steering damper and bushes.
All 3 track rod ends.
Both diff input bearings and oil seals.
Swivel bearings.
Front hub bearings (rears had been replaced just before fitting the lift)
A frame ball joint.
A frame upper bushes.
Panhard rod bushes.

Most or all of the above failures were, I believe, caused directly or indirectly by the additional stresses put on these components by the unnatural angles imposed by lifting the suspension.

In addition, the handling went to pot after fitting the lift and severe transmission vibration was introduced.

In order to restore the handling and performance back to something like normal / acceptable and to prevent further premature failure (whilst maintaining the lift) I had to do the following...

Replace all of the components listed above.
Fit cranked rear training arms.
Fit castor corrected radius arms.
Fit an adjustable panhard rod.
Fit wide-yoke propshafts front and rear.

The cost of all this was about 3 times what the lift kit cost me.


So, the moral of my story is - If you must lift your landy, be prepared for a lot more expenditure than the cost of the springs and shocks, or be prepared to put up with pretty poor on-road handling and orrible transmission vibration!
 
I have heard off a few people all the bad points now that is why mine is not being lifted, anyway it goes mostly anywhere i want it to now
 
another question on the same ish subject!!!!

just been to look at some spring from my local factor, he advise me to go for some uprated springs which would be harder (295lb) and would lift the disco (200tdi) approx 35-40mm. he said this was better than a two inch lift as it would still make the vehicle ok on the road and when towing

is he right or not or would i still have to do all the above???
 
my advise for lifting a vehicle (same for lowering which is were my info comes from as i was a tuner for a while) is

1 before fitting the modification loosten al of the bolts that hold your arms frames etc on and give everthing a coating if wd and bounce the vehicle a couple of times to make sure everything is moving

2 fit the lift kit

3 lower the vehicle onto its wheels and bounce it again to settle the suspention

4 tighten the bolts you have loosened

this way the bushes wont be stressed
 
Treworgey 90 said:
To be honest, my main motivation for wanting to lift me deepender was for the looks. Yes, there are some minor advantages to be gained when off-roading, but in many many years of landy driving, I'd never got stuck or failed to get to where I wanted to go for the lack of a lift.

Anyway, after much reading up on various forums, I was convinced that a 2" lift was simply a case of fitting the relevant springs and shocks, and no further modifications were necessary.

I was sooooo wrong.

Yes, my Landy is 16 years / 93,000 miles old and many of the components were old and tired. However, it can't be coincidence that so many parts failed / detriorated quickly after fitting the lift..

Rear trailing arm bushes and body mounts.
Radius arm bushes and body mounts.
Steering damper and bushes.
All 3 track rod ends.
Both diff input bearings and oil seals.
Swivel bearings.
Front hub bearings (rears had been replaced just before fitting the lift)
A frame ball joint.
A frame upper bushes.
Panhard rod bushes.

Most or all of the above failures were, I believe, caused directly or indirectly by the additional stresses put on these components by the unnatural angles imposed by lifting the suspension.

In addition, the handling went to pot after fitting the lift and severe transmission vibration was introduced.

In order to restore the handling and performance back to something like normal / acceptable and to prevent further premature failure (whilst maintaining the lift) I had to do the following...

Replace all of the components listed above.
Fit cranked rear training arms.
Fit castor corrected radius arms.
Fit an adjustable panhard rod.
Fit wide-yoke propshafts front and rear.

The cost of all this was about 3 times what the lift kit cost me.


So, the moral of my story is - If you must lift your landy, be prepared for a lot more expenditure than the cost of the springs and shocks, or be prepared to put up with pretty poor on-road handling and orrible transmission vibration!
Click to expand...
the moral of the story is,if **** about with sumat it'll cost ya more than if yud left it alone!same also applies to birds(not feathered type).
 
Ive lifted my 110 about 3" on the back and (supposedly) 4" on the front, but its sunk a fair bit. Yes, it tries to jump off the road occasionaly, but i dident knowtis it worsen imidiatly with the kit being fitted.

I have had sevral UJ failurses and my transfer box outputs have been fuked. Wether this is lift related i dont know; my rear propshaft was severly bent for a while after a rock encounter, which could also have caused these issues. I would like the caster correction kit, i think that would help the handeling abit, but the front propshaft is at a rediculous angle which will worsen with the caster correction kit, so thats gona cause issues too.

So i conclude, if u lift it, some stuff may brake. But with the way we treat them off road, whats new? :suspicious: That stuff was gona brake anyway.

:rolly:
 
Thanks for this wonderful info. Have A Defender 110 5-door and was planning on lifting it by 3". Glad I read this. Will just put better & bigger tyres. Like the Maxxis Big Horn 285/75/16.
 
I wanted bigger tyres to cope with deeper ruts on my toy 300 disco.
after reading this fred on ere I decided to body lift it instead.

Firstly it's an arse of a job, an i didnt wash my chassis before i did it so the whole time i was having dry mud drop in my face.

Things to consider when doing a body lift.

Wash the bloody chassis..!

out of the 10 bolts that hold the body to the chassis
is only 4 of them came away cleanly without having to grind them off or torch them, an that was after soaking them in WD40 for days.

The seatbelt mounts have tie bolts and clevis pins that hold them to the chassis, these need to be replaced with longer ones. they are a pain to undo and I needed to break out the blowtorch and a big hammer to shift them.

Jacking up the body on a couple of hi-lift's highlighted how bad the sills were inside, these are now going to need welding up for the MOT.

The Gear levers didnt work after, I had to get an engineer to turn up an extension for the transfer lever on a lathe, and I had to cut the hole in the console for the main lever and move the gaiter back about 15mm before I could get reverse.

The brake line unions were well and truly seized, so i had to make up new brake pipes so I could fit the longer flexible extensions.

The bumpers are attached to the chassis, so will need to modify the end caps to accomodate the new height for the MOT.

The transmission tunnel is sealed to the gearbox with a rubber seal, this is now torn due to the uplift and will need replacing before I go deep wading again.

The radiator is attached to the chassis, so will now need to fill the gap above it to restore any ram air effect through the grille.

The Radiator mounts need to be modified/relocated as the power steering reservoir is attached to one of them and the tollerence in the pipes is not enough to lift that as well.

I reckon it's a two man two day job, is it worth it..? too early to tell..!
 
mysteryman said:
Just being flippent - gotta change the chassis on my Defender soon - can hardly wait!! Dont even have a garage!!
Click to expand...

yer maybe wanna wait till it stops snowing..:D
BTW, it's now in my mates garage over a pit so finishing off underneath is gonna be so much easier
 
battenberg said:
I wanted bigger tyres to cope with deeper ruts on my toy 300 disco.
after reading this fred on ere I decided to body lift it instead.

Firstly it's an arse of a job, an i didnt wash my chassis before i did it so the whole time i was having dry mud drop in my face.

Things to consider when doing a body lift.

Wash the bloody chassis..!

out of the 10 bolts that hold the body to the chassis
is only 4 of them came away cleanly without having to grind them off or torch them, an that was after soaking them in WD40 for days.

The seatbelt mounts have tie bolts and clevis pins that hold them to the chassis, these need to be replaced with longer ones. they are a pain to undo and I needed to break out the blowtorch and a big hammer to shift them.

Jacking up the body on a couple of hi-lift's highlighted how bad the sills were inside, these are now going to need welding up for the MOT.

The Gear levers didnt work after, I had to get an engineer to turn up an extension for the transfer lever on a lathe, and I had to cut the hole in the console for the main lever and move the gaiter back about 15mm before I could get reverse.

The brake line unions were well and truly seized, so i had to make up new brake pipes so I could fit the longer flexible extensions.

The bumpers are attached to the chassis, so will need to modify the end caps to accomodate the new height for the MOT.

The transmission tunnel is sealed to the gearbox with a rubber seal, this is now torn due to the uplift and will need replacing before I go deep wading again.

The radiator is attached to the chassis, so will now need to fill the gap above it to restore any ram air effect through the grille.

The Radiator mounts need to be modified/relocated as the power steering reservoir is attached to one of them and the tollerence in the pipes is not enough to lift that as well.

I reckon it's a two man two day job, is it worth it..? too early to tell..!
Click to expand...


You got any pictures? I am quite interested as to what it looks like :)
 
yeah will post some when I got it back, it's over a pit geting welded and havin a new clutch at the mo...
 
Wow,I've got a 2" lift(albeit tired) on my hardtop 110.The handling wasn't brilliant but bearable,considering the distances it was driven.Some bits have bust,but just the usual things,uj's etc.Was thinking of replacing it,not so sure now.Would it be better just to get better springs and dampers then?If so,what's the best(and cheapest) bet?I'm about to fit polybush all round at same time and,if there's any cash left,get some new tyres,which I'm also unsure about.
 
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