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2 link or 4 link??

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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 10:15 PM
  #1  
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
2 link or 4 link??

i was just thinking the other day......if you were to get your 4 link to have correct pinion angles your lower links would have to be a little shorter that your upper links, with that said, i was also thinking about a 2 link susp. with a 2 link the pinion angle out of the diff is always the same.......so why is 4 link pefferec over the 2. the 2 will give the same flex....wait, let me clearify this, when i say 2 link, i am mearly referring to 4 links meeting at the same place in the frame...ie height and distance from the axle, it would still be triangulated. so why 4 instead of 2, 2 give a much better pinion angle.

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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:01 PM
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by two link do you mean like ladder bars? and with a four link you dont need to have the bottom links shorter you just move the mounts farther towards the middle of the frame, or the top mounts farther out.
 
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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:14 PM
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
im talking pinin angles though not triangulation. and 2 link yes, a latter bar set up is kinda what i mean. now for your pinion angle to rotate up as the axle drops, which is what you want, but no too much, you need a shorter lower link, ie, mounted closer to the axle than the upper link, therefore creating a shorter link bar. that way when suspension drops on that side the upper bar will rotate the axle back some. of they were the same length the pinion would stay at whever angle you set throughout supension travel....just a thought really....

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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:18 PM
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From: COLORADO
idiomaticman,
Thinking is usally what ends up costing us tons of money and labor,anyway,the two link will work in the front or rear,one of the prblems of that type of suspension is you still have to run a track bar (panhard bar for you race car guys) to keep front or rear centered in the veh.
I have used the two link in a few of our rock buggies and performs great,but there is a few quirks with this,with a ton of suspension travel comes a ton of bump steer.
As you mentioned,the pinion sngles stay pretty good unless you jump the thing,you definetly need travel limiting straps of some kind!!
I'm still working on the scanner,so maybe some pic's are coming soon, the buggy I'm working on now,we are going to use hyd. steering ,so we should get rid of the bump steer.oooo that would be nice,and we can go with bigger tires,last buggy only had 36-12.50-15s. Planning on 38.5-14.50-15s on this rig.
Hope this helps,it's a great set-up if you take the time to do it right,and make it strong!!
PHIL
 
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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:28 PM
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Texan1983
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i kinda see what your saying. almost like what is used on 73-79 f-150's front ends? this maybe different than what you are talking about, but i have wondered about just putting a backwards version of my front end out back, with longer radius ams and long trave coils. coils springs all around. sound like it will work but i am sure there is a flaw somewhere. oh well. thinking never hurts anything... well except my head.
 
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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:28 PM
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
GPA,
you say you have mucho experience in this, now i have another one for you.

you use a 4 link, bottms go back to the outside of the frame, and attach say 36" from the axle, then the uppers attach on the axle 5 inches above the bottoms on the axles, directly above them. then you run them in to the center of the frame, on a cross-member, these attach 36" back from the axle too, of course they will be longer because they are spanning a longer distance, pythagorean's theorem, now these attach at the same height on the frame, so if you looked from the side, in a 2D frame it would look like a latter bar, but its not. now you would be able to get rid of the track bar, and keep your pinion angle throughout travel.......right?

Idiomaticman
 
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Old Feb 19, 2004 | 11:54 PM
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From: COLORADO
Idiomaticman
What im saying is that the two link set up is still better because of the geometry problems with four link set-ups,plus you can get more travel with the two link, at the most what we are going to do with the buggy were building now is use a top link ( a triangle shaped piece,tw mounts on crossmember and one mount on center top of diff.) would eliminate bump steer and track bar pulling axle to one side of rig at droop.
I think some pic's of my set-up would solve alot of questions !! it's worked on all the toughest ttails AZ. CO. and UTAH have to offer!!
PHIL
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:13 AM
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
thats sweet!!....i wanna see those.

Idiomaticman
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:15 AM
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From: COLORADO
Texan1983
Well,kinda like the front radius arm set up,but a hole lot tuffer and mounted with different hardware.
The rear link in two of the last rigs I have built are hard to explain but work very well, here's a shot. We started with 2 inch heavy wall square tubing,mounted it to the spring pads on rear diff,ran it foward at an angle to a heavy plate,the plat has a rear spindle off of a front drive van , this gives my side to side up and down travel,the other side of the spindle is attached to a plate that has bushings mounted horizontaly,this gives the axle it's up and down travel, the only limit on travel is spring and shock length.
I don't know if I lost you there but like I said pic's are worth a 1000 words!!!!!
Prob. sounds like a bunch of crap,but you guys will freak when you see it !!!!!
PHIL
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:17 AM
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
GPA,
you guys got a shop in colorado right?? looking for some summer help hahah, im at osu majoring in mechanical engineering, id be willing to become your bitch for the summer just to watch this stuff being built, and what goes into it and everything hahaha.

Idiomaticman
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:27 AM
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From: COLORADO
Idiomaticman
Our shop is in sw colorado,we build hotrods,kit cars,4x4s ,anything that supports my wheeling,hotrod truck,etc.
We have been getting more high dollar cars out lately,we have built on to the shop and maybe looking for engineering-fab. guy by next summer,so keep in touch!!
You will flip over how easy this set-up is and how well it works.
The only prob. I had is I could'nt leave it simple,I used coil-over race shocks. simple yes-cheap ,absolutely not!!! had over 4000 dollars in shocks
PHIL
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:36 AM
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From: Oregon-Take me wheeling..
heard you talking about that in another thread, said you were looking to build on with just coils this time eh. about the engr fab....i am only a freshman at the moment, so ya, but i would still love to get in a shop for a summer job, that type of stuff is what i ultimatly want to do in life. it intrests me more than anything i have ever got involved in.

Idiomaticman
 
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Old Feb 20, 2004 | 12:48 AM
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From: COLORADO
Idiomaticman
I havent been on this forum long enough to be able to e-mail anyone directly,but it wont be long,so I'll get back to you on job thing later! until then,you'll get to see some pic's of my stuff,maybe can get some of the other stuff to accedentely be in the background,I know this is a FORD forum but whats in the background cant be helped sometimes.haha
I'm outa here for tonight,get back to me soon!!
LATER-PHIL
 
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