Can't stand the Ironman lift anymore, advice needed

[reznunt]

Okay, so to put the articulation problem into perspective:

If I stop the front left wheel on top of a speedbump, the car then is taller on the left side a fair amount than on the right. As much as the height of the speed bump.
If I put both front wheels on a speedbump, the truck exactly becomes a speedbump worth taller in the front, than it is on level ground.
The rear is not that bad, it will articulate such that the height is “only” 3/4 of the speedbump

The lack of articulation you're describing sounds excessive. You should be able to mall crawl right over a speed bump without tilting the truck.

Just based on your comments I'd agree with you and say you have too stiff a spring for your weight.

 

[l3n0x]

The lack of articulation you're describing sounds excessive. You should be able to mall crawl right over a speed bump without tilting the truck.

Just based on your comments I'd have to agree with you and say you have too stiff a spring for your weight. I'm no expert by any means

Thank You very much for your thoughts!

 

[reznunt]

Thank You very much for your thoughts!

For sure bro, good luck!

 

[SS100]

Do you have the suggested 55mm of droop on the front? I'm thinking you might have cranked the torsion bars too much.

Also, with a truck that has no bumper or extra weight other than OEM, the aftermarket (Iron Man, OME or others) torsion bars are too "heavy" and will give you a harsh ride.

 

[SS100]

Do you have the suggested 55mm of droop on the front? I'm thinking you might have cranked the torsion bars too much.
You can get away with about 60 mm, but anything more than that, will impede articulation and provide a very harsh ride.

Also, with a truck that has no bumper or extra weight other than OEM, the aftermarket (Iron Man, OME or others) torsion bars are too "heavy" and will give you a harsh ride.

 

[l3n0x]

Do you have the suggested 55mm of droop on the front? I'm thinking you might have cranked the torsion bars too much.

Also, with a truck that has no bumper or extra weight other than OEM, the aftermarket (Iron Man, OME or others) torsion bars are too "heavy" and will give you a harsh ride.

I had 70mm droop, then today cranked the tbars 4 turns - this seemed to be too much as the steering got funny & on one occasion it topped out on a speedbump, so right now I’ve went back 2 turns, and will take it for a spin shortly.

 

[SS100]

I had 70mm droop, then today cranked the tbars 4 turns - this seemed to be too much as the steering got funny & on one occasion it topped out on a speedbump, so right now I’ve went back 2 turns, and will take it for a spin shortly.

So that's not it, because less droop will actually give you a harsher ride. If at 70mm it felt harsh, at 55 it will be worse.

 

[l3n0x]

So that's not it, because less droop will actually give you a harsher ride. If at 70mm it felt harsh, at 55 it will be worse.

But thank you very much for your input! Appreciate it

 

[suprarx7nut]

Here is my math.

For this to work I have to live in Europe & have an already rusty truck:

1, So I've bought the truck for $14k USD worth of local currency.
2, The problem with my AHC was a bad (not as bad as the Ironman kit though) ride, 4 rusted, out of which 2 leaking rams. I figured that as a bare minimum I would need 4 globes and 4 new rams (shocks). That, by its own cost around $2.3k USD (in local currency). I had a feeling, that if I undo anything, things will snap/round off because of the rust, and I was not wrong. 2 out of 4 lines that feeds the rams rounded off the 12mm bolts that attaches them to the rams. I understand that I could have saved these lines if I took off the body and/or the fuel tank and what not, but either way, after the lift & when removing the AHC lines, all of the lines were corroded far into the actuator body & needed cutting. So this would've ment 4-5 new AHC lines & 4 new actuators (which btw hold the valves, and can also go bad, people just never talk about it). This would've brought the prices up in the $7-8-10k USD range of fixing the AHC.
3, The truck will be happy to see another 3-4 years before has to be salved because of the rust eating it away. It was a bad decision to buy it in the first place

^^
So because all of the above, I've started to think about an option that can keep the truck some more on the road, but wouldn't mean an investment that costs 2/3 of the trucks value. This is why I wanted to buy the OME kit (around $1000 USD here), but because of all the bad reviews of that, and all the good reviews about the Ironman I figured I'll drop in another $700, and go for the latter.

So my final cost was $1700 USD for the kit, and another $170 USD for renting a workshop & a lift to install it.
To be fair at that time I didn't know the AHC lines and actuators are caput, so I went with the following logic:
I go and get the IM kit (which everyone likes) for $1700, and pull the rest of the life of the truck off with it
OR
I start fixing up the AHC, which would be a minimum of $2.3k, and maybe a month later the pump will fail, I'll replace that for $1k, then a month later the idk, proportioning valve will fail (or whatever it's called).. So it would've been a never ending story. It's a 20 yo truck afterall.
It turns out, that still this was the better of the two ways to choose, as soon as I would wanted to install the new globes and struts, it would've turned out that I'd need a lot more.
Yes, you can buy these used, but these cars are rare in Europe to begin with, then there is the factor of buying a 20 yo used AHC component.. Might live 1 month, might live 1 year, might be already garbage. I wanted something dependable in this 3-4y span remaining for this car, and for that the IM kit seemed to be the wise choice.

If it was a rust free truck & I'd plan on (or would be able to) keeping it for 10+ years, I'd probably fix the AHC - but in that case the AHC would've only needed 4 new globes and a fresh set of fluid to begin with.

Awesome info, thank you very much!

 

[willoCo]

So, something to keep in mind is that the torsion bars are indexed to create the tension/height in your suspension. The same bars will be used for minimal or taller lifts. How high did you set them? Do you have them set too tall for your shocks?
For example, I've ordered the 1.5 inch lift setup for my 100 from Dobinsons. I had a convo with them and they warned me not to adjust the front too tall or I'd have a very rough ride because I'd over run the shocks. If I want to run higher then I need to crank the bars, get longer shocks and control arms.

So yeah, check your front shock part numbers and see if maybe you're cranked up too much. On the same token, if you're too low up front, then you're bottoming out the shock a bunch and the ride will suck.

 

[wvrx]

You could always sell your setup if you end up deciding to go with something cheaper - the resale value on LC parts is pretty decent. Also don’t forget to get an alignment after you touch the torsion bars.

 

[Eyedaho]

I put the ironman kit on my 99 LC a couple of weeks ago. I went with the same rear shocks as you. I have an ARB bumper, winch, skid plate, and sliders, with no added weight in the rear. In fact, I have the back seats removed, so I'm running under factory weight. With the ironman 0-200kg rear springs, I had way more lift in the rear than I wanted, and the ride was incredibly harsh. I would have had the crank the snot out of my TBs to not have a huge amount of rake. So with my setup, I swapped the OEM rear springs with 30mm spacers back in, and it drives great.

Now, my reason for upgrading to the ironman TBs was that with all of the weight up front, I had heaps of body roll on the road. I could crank my TBs to get enough pre-load, but that doesn't change the spring rate. I think that's an important distinction. If you are running stock with no weight up front, you can back of the preload on your TBs, but they will still have too high of a spring rate to give you a comfortable ride in my opinion. In this case, spending more for "better" hardware yields a harsh ride unless you are matched to the weight of your rig. At least, that's my limited experience.

The good news is that if you're running a factory weight rig and you want factory (non-AHC) TBs and springs, there are lots of them for cheap from people who swap them out. I'd send you my factory TBs, but I just shipped them for just the shipping cost to a gentleman who's also deleting AHC. I'm guessing you can also find some for cheap or free.

 

[l3n0x]

I put the ironman kit on my 99 LC a couple of weeks ago. I went with the same rear shocks as you. I have an ARB bumper, winch, skid plate, and sliders, with no added weight in the rear. In fact, I have the back seats removed, so I'm running under factory weight. With the ironman 0-200kg rear springs, I had way more lift in the rear than I wanted, and the ride was incredibly harsh. I would have had the crank the snot out of my TBs to not have a huge amount of rake. So with my setup, I swapped the OEM rear springs with 30mm spacers back in, and it drives great.

Now, my reason for upgrading to the ironman TBs was that with all of the weight up front, I had heaps of body roll on the road. I could crank my TBs to get enough pre-load, but that doesn't change the spring rate. I think that's an important distinction. If you are running stock with no weight up front, you can back of the preload on your TBs, but they will still have too high of a spring rate to give you a comfortable ride in my opinion. In this case, spending more for "better" hardware yields a harsh ride unless you are matched to the weight of your rig. At least, that's my limited experience.

The good news is that if you're running a factory weight rig and you want factory (non-AHC) TBs and springs, there are lots of them for cheap from people who swap them out. I'd send you my factory TBs, but I just shipped them for just the shipping cost to a gentleman who's also deleting AHC. I'm guessing you can also find some for cheap or free.

Thank You! Great thoughts. I agree that the most likely “issue” is that these springs/bars are too high rated for my rig

 

[Eyedaho]

Thank You! Great thoughts. I agree that the most likely “issue” is that these springs/bars are too high rated for my rig

I concur. Sorry. I was not concise in my post, but that's what I suspect is that the spring rate is too high.

 

[choob]

The Ironman options for the 100 are all stiffer than OEM, I'm not sure why they don't offer a comfort option.

 

[choob]

Ive noticed the same thing. The ride is great for the most part but hitting a small bump on a relatively smooth road feels like running over a boulder in a log wagon. Didn’t have this issue with foam cells in my GX.

Did you have the foam cell Pro in your GX?

I note that Ironman offers comfort springs and rear shock for the GX/FJ hopefully that is the difference? ( I have an FJ)

 

[Gassiper]

Did you have the foam cell Pro in your GX?

I note that Ironman offers comfort springs and rear shock for the GX/FJ hopefully that is the difference? ( I have an FJ)

I did

 

[l3n0x]

So this weekend I went for a proper offroading & aired down the tire to 22psi from 35psi.

It did make a huge difference, especially on road, so now I'm running the tires at 29psi. This way it is a lot less harsh than it used to be. Still not great, but it's a lot better.

Offroad there isn't really a difference, but at least it's though and don't have to worry about breaking it

 

[teezlr]

I just bought a 2000 LC with the 2” lift kit from Ironman and it’s firm up front, pretty harsh around town. I’d honestly like to remove the kit and replace it with something factory plush and comfort oriented. The harsh ride combined with the oversized tires makes it tram line a little, road noise, vibrate, harsh front suspension feel and just annoying since I associate Land Cruiser with a smooth ride…. Go back to stock?

 

[Eyedaho]

I just bought a 2000 LC with the 2” lift kit from Ironman and it’s firm up front, pretty harsh around town. I’d honestly like to remove the kit and replace it with something factory plush and comfort oriented. The harsh ride combined with the oversized tires makes it tram line a little, road noise, vibrate, harsh front suspension feel and just annoying since I associate Land Cruiser with a smooth ride…. Go back to stock?

You can install new OEM shocks for cheap, and they're smooth. You can crank down the ironman torsion bars to stock height if you're not running oversized tires. I'm sure you can find OEM used rear coil springs for cheap from a member to return the rear to stock height, since so many people are installing aftermarket. I think you could accomplish that for a few hundred bucks, or less if you can get the used coils for free. I ended up junking my old ones because no one wanted them.