Swing arms in front!? *pics

[Balloontyres]

Anybody knows if this is a good or bad thing to do? ofcourse the car is still too high.. but I really wonder if this is good and gives a "Landcruiser" feeling while driving... ? Please some advice on this suspension. I just made the pics in the shop where I want to modify my Hilux..











Also this custom axle any comments please, is this well done? please any info:



And this frame should be from a Hilux 2003 or so..

[Tjakkur]

Front suspension that forces the wheels forward against obstacles is obviously a work of an idiot without the faintest understanding of suspension or driveability.

Keep a safe distance from that workshop.

[Balloontyres]

thank you very much for your reply! seems they are just trying to find out what works best... I want to go for the Icelandic way anyway! so I will try to order the air suspension from Firestone for my Hilux.

[kaos]

Front suspension that forces the wheels forward against obstacles is obviously a work of an idiot without the faintest understanding of suspension or driveability.

Would you care to explain a bit? Do you mean the "leading arm" that connects from the frame and forwards to the axle? If so, that particular idiocy seems quite widespread. In fact I can't recollect any coil sprung live front axle suspension that doesn't use some variation of it. The four link type is maybe more common than this swing-arm type (though I'm sure I've seen this type before), but the four link also connects forward towards the axle.

--
Kári.

[olei]

If you take a look at stock trucks using this kind of suspension in front (toyota LC 80, Nissan Patrol etc) the radius arm is very close to horizontal if you line up the pivot points. This means, if you lift the truck on suspension (not talking about body lift) you want to lower the rear mount to keep the radius arm horizontal. Then you also get "correct"* caster angle, however the driveshaft u-joint angle is thrown off by this and frequently additional measures are needed to take care of that.

*Caster angle for 35" tires or more should be 5-8°


If the the radius arm is not horizontal - like the picture shows you get drivability issues, if the body rolls the front axle is no longer perpendicular to the rest of the truck and it turns slightly, so you have to correct for it on the steering wheel. Off road this is also considered bad because if you hit a rock the front axle has to move forward as it moves upward. Increasing the shock on the front end. On the other hand - the mounting brackets for the radius arms lower ground clerance and can hit rocks in extreme conditions if they are very low. So for pure off road situations this is a tradeoff.

Regarding radius arms on the rear end - same can be said for drivability on road. Optimal setup for drivability is to keep them horizontal. Generally speaking, using radius arms from; Range Rover, Nissan Patrol, Toy LC front axles in the rear usually results in very short life of bushings. At least over here where modified trucks are driven a lot. This is perhaps none-issue if you use your truck for off road only and it also depends if the truck has full time or part time 4wd.

[olei]

Not sure what to say about the rest of the pictures, the custom rear axle looks cool - and expensive. Without context not much to say about that. I did a quick search on this forum and I see you are considering modifying 2014 hilux for 42-46" tires.

I guess if you want modification advice the first question is - how are you going to use it?
Snow, Rock climbing, sand, mud?

And since you mention you want to modify your truck the "Icelandic" way. Well, it's not straight forward what the Icelandic way is actually. First thing is that we modify our trucks for snow driving. Driving in snow on big tires is not very taxing on the driveline. Therefore companies like Arctic trucks modify hilux using the stock front and rear differential and axle shafts (as far as I know). They say it's fine for 44" tires!? I beg to differ! Honestly if you take such truck to rock crawling or heavy sand-mud driving you will destroy the stock driveline very quickly, even in snow it's marginal at best. My travelmate has 2007 hilux and he uses front and rear axles from Nissan Patrol Y60, both have 233mm ring gear and are a much stronger than the stock Hilux driveline. If you have old rusting and rotting Y60 Patrols in your neck of the woods you should consider that. Nissan engineers put a lot of love into them. :)

[Tjakkur]

Kári is spot on!

Tilting radius arms (swing arms) also cause excessive oversteering when the body leans in fast turns. In a right hand turn the left front arm becomes closer to horizontal and effectively longer. The angle of the front right arms becomes steeper and this combined, turns the front axle into the turn.
Same thing happens on the rear axle, -it turns the back axle leftwards in a right hand turn and oversteers the car.

The suspension setup of that black pickup is useless for anything but slow straight driving on flat ground.
-But it is a good indicator of the IQ of the poor bloke who built it.

[olei]

Kannski er þessi svarti hilux smíðaður eingöngu fyrir akstur utan vega og sem leiktæki á slóðum og þá horfir málið bara allt öðruvísi við. Fáar þjóðir nota breytta jeppa eins og við, skröltandi á þjóðvegunum megnið af líftímanum. Slakið á gáfumanna-kommentunum félagar. Óvíst að þau séu svo gáfuleg.

[Dodge]

Most 38 - 44 inch jeeps in Iceland have radius arms in the front suspension with no real problems, but ussing this setup in the rear couses the jeep to raise the rear end under forward acceleration, meanwhile the front tries to lower but is countered by the natural acceleration lean back action of the jeep so it remains pretty stable..
I have a similar setup in my 38" wrangler and it steers and acts pretty perfect.

I would avoid this setup in the rear, the arms would at least need to be longer an connected lower on the frame (level)

[Balloontyres]

Thanks a lot for the replies I truly appreciate it. I am planning my conversion for about 2 years now.
After a lot of thinking and reading I have recently decided to go probably for an 38 conversion. I have to use it in hot conditions, mainly road and bad roads with holes in it and dirt and mud roads. But I want super comfort or that Landcruiser feeling... so that I can drive over bad roads with big comfort. I have the flares already here ordered from Iceland :) I am thinking about these tyres:
Toyo Open Country MT or Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ radial LT375/65R16. Or maybe another tyre if somebody has an advice.

I am trying to create something like this but than with super suspension better or same as a Landcruisers comfort..



example Toyo:


example Jeep with Baja MTZ


example Toyo open country 38's on standard Landcruiser:



What about this suspension set up?

[Balloontyres]

Here another swing arm in front I made this picture 2 weeks ago:



please comment on this set up