Hey kiddos!
Remember this build?
Well after nearly a year of not working on it while I did some home remodeling I have decided to get back at it.
Beyond just wanting to drive and use this thing I have other reasons for finishing it up soon.
Our plans are to put our house up for sale and we will be building the next house so I need to be able drive the van as there will not be anywhere to put it until I build a garage at the next place.
So now its go time.
I have only worked on it for a couple of hours recently but it made it painfully apparent that I had some choices to make.
I finally got my sub-frame located where it should be and decided to slap the control arms in there and see what it looks like.
I am not going to lie.
I don't really care for this layout.
There will be about 13 or 14 inches of clearance at the midpoint of the van but there sure does seem like a lot of stuff hanging down there.
If I could run 40 inch tires, clearance would not be an issue but since 31 or 32 inch tires are about the max without serious body mods then I need to think about this more.
It still has more clearance than a stock syncro and a couple more inches of belly pan clearance than a stock 4runner but the arms are just bumming me out.
There's just a lot of "stuff" hangin' out there to drag or get snagged on everything.
I should also mention that I am not happy with the design of the arms themselves (notice the two different versions)
They are also not fun to build.
So tonight I laid on the floor under the van and really started looking at the space I have available for this and that.
If you have been under any of the coil sprung Wranglers or Cherokees or even checked out the 4Runner rear suspension you will see that they are pretty compact.
You will have likely noticed that they also function pretty well, even in stock form.
The 4Runner rear is probably a better example of this as its longer arms allow for more travel before bushing bind.
With all this in mind, I decided to go lay under our 5th gen 4Runner for a minute and take a looky.
A few measurements later and It would seem that I totally have enough room for a 4 link front and rear on this van.
Hell it even seems that I should also be able to make the links a little longer than the stock 4Runner rear bits and way longer than any of the Jeep parts.
I have also been thinking real hard about making a small hump in the van floor so I can lift the transfer case up a bit more to help with breakover angles.
This could easily be hidden by a false floor that will also make space for some plumbing and wiring that I could run there.
To top it all off I think I can build all the link mounts and a new simpler transfer case mount with fewer parts and a lot less complexity.
It would be a relatively simple 4 link set up with a panhard bar.
I could also build in some adjustability in the 4 link arms more easily than I could the radius arms which would make lifting or upgrading the suspension simpler in the future.
As with anything built form an existing platform there are compromises.
Will this be a super flexy rock crawling rig?
No.
However, I think changing to a short (ish) arm 4 link would not only be easier to build and adjust than my radius arm set up but it would also be a lot tidier, more compact, easier to build and it would perform better than the radius arms would.
Since all of this is bolt on at this point it's not real difficult to bail on this design.
Of course I am also bailing on the 5 or 6 hundred bucks I have in the existing suspension parts at this point but that has long since been paid for so...Meh.
While the bike builder Jesse James might not be the best roll model or philosopher, I will always remember something he said on his chopper show a long time ago.
I am paraphrasing here because I do not actually remember the quote word for word.
-I don't care how much time or money I spend on something, if it sucks is sucks-
Or something like that.
Anyway I'm gonna hit the drawing software over the next couple days and see if I can get a 4 link with suitable geometry sorted out.
I will then make the choice on the bushings or joints I want to use and get some parts and material ordered.
Until next time....
