SteveO

When shocks are placed at such an angle /\, they do loose their full effectiveness. However, one needs to take a look at the shock for one, and then at the vehicle that its going on. Some shocks are stiffer than others and will work great at this angle for the vehicles given weight. Other shocks, such as mine, can be tuned. I have Rancho 9000 adjustable shocks. When I'm wheeling, I'll set the valve to stiff, to reduce the body roll and bounce. When I'm on the street, I'll set the vale to moderate, so the ride is better. As for body roll on the street, It does roll around, but I'm not concerned. I can take a hard corner and no tires come off the ground. The suspension flexes like mad, but its very controllable in corners. So, consider the shocks and the vehicle before evaluating the angle.

AH64ID

I agree.. I have the same shock, and IIRC the 9012's are for F-250's, so its valved heavey to begin with... I really dont even have that much body roll around town, its a very good setup for me..

Tigerstripe40

Save time, money and effort

Get an FJ62.

FredTJ

Actually I see a lot of different types of vehicles running that shock setup.
Doesn't mean it's good or right




The shock setup on this vehicle is just one of a handful of things that's really wrong. Lack of swaybars is another.
None the less, picture how this vehicle would look, in this same spot, setup the same except for the shocks being outboarded. Would make all the difference in the world.


John, something or things were setup worngly then. Perhaps sway bars.
A properly setup coil and link rig is very stable and can flex like no tomorrow

Here's just starting to get pretty sideways. When the right rear tire comes up on the ledge the vehicle gets pretty offcamber. No problems at all:



Here's one of me pretty offcamber. Look how close the drivers edge of the top is to the rock lip
Anyway, the right front wheel is up on a big rock, just like the right rear wheel. The right rear has to go down the rock that it's on and then up on the one that you can see right in front of it, which is where the right front tire is now, just getting set to come off of it.
Note that the body is not flopping, but nice and stable. Coils, link suspension, outboarded shocks, sway bars front and rear (though flexy and "loosened" sway bars, but sway bars none the less ):





That sounds like axle steering (most commonly seen on the rear axle) is is caused by lack of control arms setup and/or trackbar setup.



But by outboarding the shocks, one can run a longer shock, have all the wheel travel, and add a lot of stability to the vehicle.

You can see the outboaded rear shock in these two photos. This mod. allows the use of a pretty long shock.







Fairly twisted up. No rear axle steer and very, very stable:





Can't see the drivers side front, however it's completely drooped out.
No axle steer, perfectly stable:




Can't see the drivers side rear, however it's pretty drooped and the drivers side front is really close to completely stuffed. Again, no axle steer, perfectly stable:








I would argue the point about working very, very well, but I'm not the type

The /\ setup might be the only aftermarket setup available for Toyotas, but it wouldn't be too hard to fab something else up.
Speaking of aftermarket, I've seen a handful of aftermarket rear trackbar corrections for lifted 4Runners, and all except one of them are brackets that lower the frame end of the trackbar, which is exactly what's not wanted. I've only seen one that offers a bracket to raise the axle end of the trackbar, which is exactly what's needed.

These 3 photos are just for fun

Here I am starting up the Firehole on Upper Woodpecker:



A shot from the ground, behind me:



Actually that's the easy part. Getting out of it is a little snoggy. You continue straight from here a little and then you have to make a really, really hard turn to the right just as you're getting all crossed up, and as you make that turn you have to go down a ledge

This is just a pretty neat (I think) panaromatic shot of a part of Lower Woodpecker. I'm 4th in line, waiting my turn:




Lastly, to keep this about Toyotas still and show that Toyotas really, really do *RULE*, here's a shot of Richard, working his way through a brand new obstacle on Miners Revenge. Richard was the first person to make it through this, and, to this date, damn few have gotten through it and this includes some pretty impressive looking buggies that tried and failed. Many have broken badly here.Many have tried and failed. I should look through my photos, as I know I have some other shots of him on this. I have some video I'm pretty sure.
Anyhow, since he was the first, he got to name it: The Grinder (and Richard on 37 MT/R's ):





Best,
Fred

AH64ID

Fred,

All the rigs you are showing with a /\ are coil sprung, non of the toyotas on here with /\ are coil sprung, they are all leafs. Leafs are much more stable and the less dampening from the /\ setup isnt noticed as much.

I was looking at those photos and have a few questions.. one how close does the shock come to contacting the frame on full droop, with the otherside stuffed? My tire goes several inches inward and i would think the shock would contact the frame. Also what leangth shock are you using? That close to the tire I would think a 14" shock would only alow for what 16" of wheel travel, I was getting about 20-21" on my runner, I dont think that would have been possible with a outboard shock mount.


It looks to me like you had ranchos, cant tell if 5000 or 9000, but those arent gas positivly charged for lift, so really if you were to sit in an offcamer situation they could compress on you because they aren't charged, they will follow where the suspenion wants to go. But initially it will be much more stable.
As far as swaybars, I dont think those are needed on leaf setups, just coils due to their nature.

My runner had a 4" panhard bar drop bracket, it was on the frame side, but the geometry is the same. The reason the axle "steered" was due to the large angles the control arms were at. 4 link arms like to be as level as possible, and with 4.5" of lift in the rear they are not even close, and when you droop out one side and stuff the other the huge difference in angle created a large steer. I also found that even in stock form the thrust angle was very off on my runner, and when I had the 4" springs the thust angle would change as much as .5* with the runner being empty versus my normal gear. .7* is ths "limit" and with a .5* varyance I wasnt happy. With the leaves my thurst angle was better than stock, and didnt vary with weight.

FredTJ

And leafs are stiffer....
Comparing the ride between a 4 coil vs a laef sprung vehicle, every leaf sprung that I've been in was considerable stiffer than the similar 4 coil vehicle.

Maybe it's hard to tell from those photos, however the shock is not on the outside of the frame, between the inner portion of the wheel and the frame.
The frame's been cut out (notched out so to speak) and the F-150 shock towers welded in the notch such the the shock rides pretty much inside the frame.



http://sports.webshots.com/photo/146...52943992OukBvO

Actually sways help on leaf sprung vehicles but most that I've seen have had 'em removed.
They really needed on coiled vehicles.


Oh, I wasn't talking about the axle not being centered with an axle drop bracket. It's deeper than that.
The rollcenter (RC), or moment center (MC) as some call it, is located at the halfway point on the track bar, both vertically and horizontally. We we lift the vehicle we raise the center of gravity (COG) (duh ). We also lower the RC as the axle end of the trackbar is being "dropped lower", in relation to the frame end. The further away (vertically) that the RC is from the COG the greater the tendency of the vehicle to roll, not roll over (though that happens ), but the body to roll, because the leverage arm LA is longer and just like using a longer pry bar, or whatever, it's easier to "pry" something.
By dropping the frame end of the trackbar, when we lift the vehicle, we're dropping the RC even further... The "correct" way to recenter the axle via a trackbar relocation bracket, is the raise the axle end.

Yes, with shorter arms we'll get some "rear steer", however it'll only happen during "extreme" flex and I've really never noticed it to effect the outcome of getting over an obstacle, assuming that the CA angles are rediculous

Your thrust angle should not change, when driving on road, based on the weight of the vehicle. The arms change angles, as the suspension compresses from the extra weight at the same rate or amount.


Best,
Fred