Sorting out the rear suspension
This body of work represents something that shouldn’t have needed doing at all, so I’m not best pleased at how much time and money has gone into the effort.
When I installed the rear suspension (A rolling chassis) I installed parabolic springs front and rear. The springs were Britpart, and the rear springs are shown here in the Britpart catalog http://www.britpart.co.uk/Accessory.asp?PageRef=4&AccessoryRef=1050&AccessoryVehicleRef=.
If you take a look at the Britpart catalogue picture, and the springs I was supplied, you’ll see that the supplied springs are a lot bendier than the catalogue shows.
The distance from the top of the axle to the chassis is a standard SWB should be 170mm. In this case, the distance was 270mm.
When I put the tailshaft in, not only was the tailshaft at an amazing angle, but the universal joints were binding at the diff and gearbox.
Thinking it might be because the rear wasn’t loaded up, I put the tub on temporarily, and loaded family members in. With about 450kg in the tub, the axle-chassis distance dropped to 200mm, which is nowhere near right.
I went back to the Britpart wholesaler through the retail outlet where I got them, and they weren’t even a little bit interested. Looking round through various Land Rover forums, there seems to be general agreement that Britpart quality control on these items is crap.
There’s a simple message here. If you want to install parabolic springs, Do not install Britpart.
How to sort the mess out?
First, I installed 50mm lowering blocks. This was an interesting exercise in itself, as I had to buy a “standard” lowering kit, and then modify it to fit. The locating hole in the bottom of the lowering block needed drilling out to fit the bolt holding the leaves together, and the supplied u-bolts needed cutting down. Not particularly difficult, just time-consuming. It’s a good job this is only a hobby, isn’t it?
This brought the axle-chassis distance down to 200mm, which was acceptable.
While I was crawling around underneath, I decided to remove the helper leaf, which was obviously never going to do anything. This was a good decision, because I got to take a look at the spacers between the leaves. These were made of mild steel, were already rusting, and looked as if they had been cut out with an axe. Did I mention - if you want to install parabolic springs, Do not install Britpart.
Anyway, I greased all the spacers, and put everything back together.
Having got the suspension sorted out, I went to put the tailshaft back in. Oh goodie – the tailshaft was now 2mm too long to fit between the diff and the gearbox. After looking at the problem for a while, there was only one answer – cut the tailshaft down.
I called Metropolitan Drive Shafts, (02 9637 7933), who said no problems. I dropped the tailshaft off at 7.30am, and it was ready to pick up, 30mm shorter and nicely painted, at 10am the same day. Highly recommended.
One last job, install the tailshaft, and the back end is finally sorted.
Postscript
Well, the back end wasn’t sorted.
When I went to put the shock absorbers on, the shockies were now far too short to fit onto the excessive distance between the mounts.
So I did what I should have done in the first place –
removed the springs, pulled out the bushes (God bless poly bushes) and took the
springs down to Carroll’s Springs
(02 9681 1355) at
They were a bit dubious about the parabolics (apparently the different thicknesses of spring make them difficult to get to the right temperature simultaneously) but had a go anyway.
A day later, and the springs came back looking just like they should have been in the first place.
This was a horribly expensive exercise from start to finish, but a wonderful learning experience. An experience I won’t forget in a hurry.
The load in the tub
Loaded, and axle-chassis distance down to 200mm.
Lowering blocks fitted, helper leaf removed, greased and re-assembled.
The guys at Metropolitan Drive Shafts, with my nicely packaged tailshaft on the counter.
Ready to install
Installed and ready to go
