Here's another shot of the finished install, coil-over and travel limiter.

 

on the ground and at ride height.. THUMBS UP

 

SUMMMARY:
The new ride quality is a tremendous improvement, as is the hookup. My truck rides like a new vehicle with great control of the rear end.

I attribute significantly of this to the tune-ability (17 positions each compression and rebound adjustment) of the new viking shocks (check them out on the web). The Founders left QA1. They are billet, monotube shocks, double adjustable, for the price of single adjustables by other manufacturers. I spent about $600 for their springs, torsional bearing and shocks at all four corners, these are with spherical bearing mounts vs. bushings.

 

Very interesting fab job. Thanks for sharing.

 

Hey Mike,
Thanks for the kind words. Glad it was interesting to you. It provided me hours of thoughtful entertainment

A really good learning (and execution) exercise overall with results I'm really proud of.

Cheers,

Doug

 

Looks Great! I really Dig the wheels

 

Great post and info, I really like your ride height and it was interesting to see that you did not c-notch the frame. Well done thanks.

Bruce

 

Hey DW,
That's an incredible amount of work you did to stabilize the ride. Wow...
I also think that's the first time I've seen an advanced Excel chart posted here. I've got a '50 F1 with an Explorer rear end & springs in it - I'm considering a 3 link set up. What drove you to pick the solution you went with vs. some of the other options out there? Trying to understand & get a better feel for the different options for IRS set ups.

Your truck is just stunning.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Hi All,
Thank you for the great feedback! I appreciate it. In talking to the folks at Viking, they said if I had 4" to the frame from the top of the rear axle, I wouldn't need to notch it, since I had only about 2 3/4" compression travel. Makes sense

Doug

 

Ben,
I did a lot of reading and thinking. Every suspension design has its pros and cons. The pros of the triangulated four link is you don't need a pan hard bar to keep the rear axle centered left to right. The triangulation of the top bars does that. A second pro is if the upper and lower links are parallel (or close as is my design) and close to the same length, the pinion angle doesn't change much as the suspension articulates.

The cons are it may not articulate as well as a three link and you could get some binding due to the bushings. There is a solution for that though if the bushing "stiction" is an issue. "Johnny Joints". They are like grease-able heim joints made by Currie Enterprises. I had some on order, but once I drove the truck, I decided I didn't need them. It rides great as is. If the bushings have stiction... I don't feel it (or hear it). BTW - the bushings are printed with the words "Pete & Jakes" so I guess Welderseries sources them from them.

The non-triangulated four-link requires a pan hard bard. If you think about that system (with a pan hard), the axle will move left to right as the suspension articulates (draw a right triangle where the pan hard is hypotenuse. The horizontal leg changes distance as the vertical leg goes up and down.

Seems like all the pros mount the shocks (coil overs) behind the axle for several reasons, so that was easy and the bracketry was setup for that.

Really happy here with the results. Thanks again for the kind words!
If you want more info, I'm glad to have a call with you.

Doug

 

All the engineering that you guys obviously understand is way over my head, but that's ok. I can still appreciate all the homework , and beautiful workmanship that has gone into a very beautiful, well engineered,and well done truck. She's gorgeous, and I bet she drives like a dream. Congratulations on a job well done.

 

If my kid ever says that he doesn't need Geometry...then we are going to start a suspension project
Maybe I missed this, but who provided the advanced Excel spreadsheet? How helpful was it in determining your final build specs?

Great looking truck. Good job

 

Hi,
I found the spreadsheet on the Pirate 4x4 website and downloaded there. It was free-ware.
After many (perhaps one hundred iterations) of working through the numbers, going out to the garage to measure if it'd fit, optimizing and then doing it again, I settled on the final design - the excel spreadsheet was critical to my design process. To the best of my ability, the execution is spot on vs. the design. You'll note it is measured to 1/8" and I think I am accurate to 1/16".

I brought it back in after some driving, reset the ride height and the #s were spot on.
I could improve accuracy, perhaps with a frame table. But things are very consistent side to side and seem spot on.

Yeah, it drives great.

Appreciate the kind words!

Yes, GEOMETRY, math, ability to measure, and use of a spreadsheet are valuable skills! I added some of my own pages to the spreadsheet to make other calculations (like new ride height), actual distance from the floor (It was about +8" on the jack stands vs. actual ride height), angles of the links vs. horizontal (so I could cross check vs. height measurements from the floor.

It was fun to work through all of that, for sure.
Doug

 

What part numbers on the coil overs?

 

I used Viking double adjustable shock body part # C209 in the rear.