Lean angle, Roll.

GR8ADV

Explorer
Traveling through Baja I had he lively experience of leaning my 11’-6 rigidly fixed FUSO 20 degrees. It was pretty darn uncomfortable and sketchy. With 4 wheel drive and a low speed transfer case, it seems the roll is my limiting factor.

I am curious what is ‘generally’ possible/acceptable ( actual trail running not on a ramp) out of a mog or any other large rig for that matter.

Thx
 

Kingsize24

Well-known member
I'd say 20 degrees is already impressive for how tall you are. It will all depend on bottom vs top weight however. Beyond professionally tip testing, I'm not sure how else you would find your limit.
 

Peter_n_Margaret

Adventurer
3.05M = 10ft, 6.5T.
The OKA has long leaf springs all round, Dana 60 front, Dana 70 rear, very stiff chassis and no torsion bars.
"About" 30 degrees, dynamic, not static.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome
 

KarstenP

Van of Mayhem
It's all about the COG. Bigger trucks tend to have a lower COG than small trucks. The big red 15t Iveco in the picture is about 22°, which is quite safe for this one. The Sprinter is at about 18° and already starts lifting wheels here.
A Unimog will do some more, but you have to watch your speed. Those angles are more or less static. As soon as dynamic comes into play, it's all different. Those are just examples of my side gig as driving instructor.
 

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Calculate the height of the COG using the weight per axle on inclined plane of known angle, and use simple trigonometry for tipover angle when height of COG is directly over tire tread center. With fudge factor for suspension deflection.
I used alternative summation method (ΣW(i) x h(i)/W). Sum of all individual masses times height cog of masses divided by total mass. Lots of fudge factors, came out with ~30 degrees.
 

Iain_U1250

Explorer
On ours Unimog U1250, we have recently gone over 35 degrees, but the was turning at the bottom of a dune on an entrance to the beach and we had a sand wall on the one side so that we could not really fall over, but we didn't hit it, just hanging on was difficult for my co-pilot. We try not to do side slopes, just too scary. My co-pilot tends to get out the truck when we go over 25 degrees. In our last trip, a section down to Point Malcolm had section of track had us at 25-30 Degrees for quite a few hundred metres, so we took it very slow. Dynamics stability is very different from static, and it would be easy to roll at higher speed than doing things very slowly. Our low range is very slow, and we use it if we have any side slope at all. .
Video Snapshot00101.jpg
Our truck is 3.3m high, but with a narrow wheelbase, however, apart from the spare wheel on the roof, there is nothing heavy above the COG - which is around our floor level. We don't have lots of cupboards above head height, and try to keep all the heavy things as close to the floor as possible.


This was the scariest, with the rear wheel dropped quite suddenly as the sand gave away we rocked quite a bit before stopping, and even then we were sinking slowly into the sand as the wind was blowing the sand away from the rear. I dropped the tyre pressures on the other side as quickly as possible before lowering the ones on this side, then was able to reverse down the hill, turning to straighten up. This was quite dynamic, as we stopped pretty quickly when the back went down.

Video Snapshot00084.jpg

We have in past done some side slopes that had the roof bars leaning on a tree, when it came to the end of the bar, I took it really slowly so minimise the dynamic effects. I would love to see what our actial tilt limit would be on a static tilt table.
 
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Neil

Observer
Once you add in the inertia of a sudden drop on one side then a 10 degree angle can easily flip you over.

These staged tipping platforms and mathematical equations are useless and don't really apply in the real world .

Neil
 

KarstenP

Van of Mayhem
That was 25° when the sand let go with quite some strains in the drivers underwear. We ended up securing the vehicle with two winches, one at the back, one at the front at about 45° angle to keep it from sliding further down and after shoveling for an hour, we used the third winch to winch it out.
Interesting, how many people show up in the middle of the Sahara when something like this happens :LOL:

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Neil

Observer
This was about 10 degrees with a small amount of inertia.

Interestingly, when getting it out slowly with no inertia it sat at an angle of about 30 degrees quite comfortably .
 

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I agree 100% with dynamic vs static comments (dynamic = “inertia”).
Which is one reason why I have seemed to be obsessed over the years on this forum with low gearing = ability to creep without lurching.
Anyone who’s driven an automatic over rough terrain and relied on the torque converter for low speed creeping over obstacles will know what I mean.
Iain’s U1250’s 5.76:1 low range ratio is a big safety factor in off-camber driving.
 

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