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Hi YT team. Its been a while since I posted. Hell, its been a while since i've been wheeling. But I am moving along with one of my builds and have a couple of questions.
Here is my setup: (and I don't want to hear anything about "fail-gear.")
Trail-Gear 3 link kit for hydro steer, not high steer.
FOX 16" air shocks (14" were on backorder for months, and I figure I can get away with it using the high pinion and High Angle Driveline drive shaft. Otherwise I'll limit articulation with straps and bump stops.)
TG rock assault front axle housing
TG high pinion front diff with 4:88 and detroit locker (front and rear)
High Angle Driveline front driveshaft (highly recommend these)
TG 4:70 tcase
Marlin crawler HD w56b transmission
All the chromolly TG axle parts you can fit inside, dirty 30 kit, hub gears, etc.
MC 1600lb comp clutch
Full hydro steer
And a pile of engnbldr and LC Engineering parts go under the hood.
I will post a great amount of info related to my build and what I did and had to redo etc. Some things were not covered clearly in TG's instructions, and they most definitely did not write them up with a rock assault housing in mind.
As for the questions I have, they are mostly related to the pan hard link geometry.
Here are some pictures for now. Questions to follow.
So on to the questions:
With the truck sitting at ride height, and the axle at correct height, my pandhard link is just not quite horizontal. Other than moving the frame bracket for PH link down, how would I get the PH link parallel to the ground at this point.
Same question goes for the upper link. I have read that it should also be parallel to the ground, but I don't see that being physically possible. The axle would have to be right against the frame, and there would be no room for uptravel.
Also, at this configuration, I have 4" of uptravel on my 16" shocks. With 12" of droop, the axle shifts far left. Roughly 2" or shift at full droop. I can't see how I could change anything to prevent this, other than limit droop with straps? I have read this is sort of normal because of the panhard geometry, but it seems extreme in my case...
With the shocks compressed with the straps to bring the truck down to ride height, and the axle at ride height, if I put my jack under the knuckle and jack it up, the whole truck goes with it, rather than just the shock compressing. It seemed very difficult to get the shocks to compress down to the ride height point also.
Is it because the shocks havent been charged? Or could be the panhard link being off somehow?
Also, didnt mention that my links are not parallel to the ground, but the upper link is parallel to the lower link. And the lower links are parallel to each other front front to back.
I am going to try removing and relocating the PH link frame bracket to bring the PH link horizontal and see what happens. If that works then I will have to reinforce the frame bracket at the bottom side where there will then be a gap. Shouldn't be too drastic however.
I've been fooling around more today trying to understand this inside and out. I have removed the shocks. And truck still shifts to the side when when the shocks compress.
I also set the axle at ride height, and lowered the frame to what would have been full compression, and the panhard link binds against the upper link mount on the axle.
So, I cut the upper link bracket off, and removed the upper link. Then i cut the PH link frame bracket off and set the truck and axle back to ride height. If I lower my PH bracket an inch or two, I can achieve a negative angle PH link at ride height. I will tack the bracket in its new position and center the axle here shortly.
Once I set the truck to full compression, I will remount the upper link bracket. I may have to shave back to the upper link by a half inch to gain clearance as the joints are all the way in on both ends.
SO I think have the problem worked out. After I removed the upper link, the upper link bracket, PH link, and PH link frame bracket, I set the truck and axle back to ride height and repositioned the PH link frame bracket so that it was horizontal to the ground. I had to drop the PH link frame bracket about 2" to get it lined up. I will reinforce the frame bracket with steel plate to make it stronger.
Once the axle was centered I repositioned the upper link axle bracket on top of the diff housing and lined it up with the upper link frame bracket with the truck and axle still at ride height.
With the pinion angle correct, and the panhard link horizontal to the ground and parallel to the axle I checked the length of the upper link and noticed it was about an inch too long so I removed my tack welds on one of the bungs and cut an inch off the upper link. Once reassembled everything lined up great.
I flexed out the truck from full compression to full droop. At full droop the axle still shifts to the driver side, but not as much. The axle tucks nicely at full compression. The panhard link just barely makes contact with the upper link bracket still but not with any force. I will be using bumpstops.
As for full droop, I think it may be a bit too much but not sure. I ran out of daylight before I could throw the tcase back in and get the drive shaft reinstalled. I will check the last of it tomorrow morning. Worst case at this point should be solved with a pair of limiting straps.
05-21-2016, 11:38 AM
