Coil the front axle? (1 Viewer)

[MANUCHAO]

Easier to swap the 60 body onto an 80 frame..

^^ This ..............+1000

 

[White Stripe]

I did sua axle in the front and soa on the rear of my rig to keep cog low. I am pretty happy with it. It flexes fine, and it hooks up on ledges pretty well. I had custom front leaf springs made, but it would be nice to have coils because its easier to tune the ride.

 

[hiluxjeremy]

I would really like a pic of your current leaf setup. Long, almost flat leaves can yield pretty decent performance all the way around. It all depends on exact spring pack and mounting point configuration. Ride height, available wheel travel, ride characteristics, and weight carrying capacity are all dependent on each other while being easily tunable for minimal cost if youve got a few old springs lying around.. and can fabricate mounts. It is critical however to have an understanding of how these factors affect one another. I feel the 60's i've seen and worked on in the past would benefit greatly from much longer, spring over leaf packs with way less arch. Radius arm/panhard is the simplest link/coil system I can think of while also being tough and stable for everyday, any condition use, including some serious trails. No, its not a three or 4 link but a rig that stays together, is always better than the crazy one that broke. And you can laugh all the way to the bank when the heim joints you dont have dont wear out. Bushings are cheap and tough. Shocks will depend on available travel from spring set ups and be chosen/mounted in such a way as to make use of all available travel, taking valving into account for best results in fine tuning a particular suspension setup. A 60 on 80 arms and coils well executed would be cool to me. Much more interesting than a 60 body on an 80 frame.

Only my opinion however. Hopefully there is a nugget of truth in there somewhere.

 

[mano002]

Ride quality comes from spring rate, shock tuning and suspension geometry. You can control all of that if you build a link and coil set up, but you can also botch all of those things if you don't know what you are doing.

Like Jeremy says, a flat SOA, with the right shock can be pretty smooth riding.

I would go over to Pirate 4x4, read a ton of threads on geometry, download their link calculators, mock some stuff up, put your flame suit on and ask a few questions, wade through the BS and decide then if you want to do links and coils overs.

 

[SNLC]

Difficult to fit coil springs on a 60 with a 60 axle. Not really enough room to do it right unless yo go full custom. If you are going to use 80 stuff you will have a hard time fitting the coil buckets in there and the coils. 80 style is outboard of the frame rails, 60 axle just not wide enough for an easy fit. It is doable but space is the challenge.

I would go coilovers on the radius arms. Super easy to set up and tons of options for tuning it. IMHO, flex comes 3rd in an off-road truck. 1st is traction (lockers), 2nd is gears (crawlability) and 3rd would be flex. With your limited off-road use the radius arms should work fine and if not, not that hard to go 3-link after that. Not sure how tall your truck is but popular with the Aussies is flipping the radius arms once you hit or crack 5" of lift on the 80 set up. Something to look into also. With your steering already in front of the axle and a c&t easy to do you can dial the front end in real nice with the radius arms and c/o's. It won't be a flex monster but if you set up steering and caster right it will track down the HWY like a dream.

Figured I would add this, some of the best riding and handling trucks I have had were on leaf springs. But it is a balance of the right springs, caster and steering geometry. Track vs height also plays a big part in this.

Cheers

 

[Gumby]

Figured I would add this, some of the best riding and handling trucks I have had were on leaf springs. But it is a balance of the right springs, caster and steering geometry. Track vs height also plays a big part in this.

troof

Much easier and cheaper in the long run to fix the leaf sprung suspension.

 

[SNLC]

troof

Much easier and cheaper in the long run to fix the leaf sprung suspension.

I actually like leaves a lot. Once you get them all dialed in they are hard to beat.

My 60 flexed awesome, even being SuA. Sooooo smooth down the HWY. 75mph in 4wd and it was a two finger deal on the steering wheel. I can say that it damn near handled better than my new 100-series. And almost as good as my 80 once I had dialed in the 80's suspension & steering. Great thing about leaves, they are predictable and easy to dial in but of course they do make a truck ride like a truck.

Cheers

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

70 series front coils are narrower than 80 series front coils...My plan utilizes radius arms and 80 series front coils on a 62 front axle under an fj55. the 55 frame is narrower than the 60, so the wider 60/62 series front axle should allow room for it all- just barely. The 55 axle was too narrow to fit all the stuff under the 55 frame....same issue the 60/62 axle will have under a 60/62 frame...now an fj80 front axle should solve the clearance issue for the 60/62 crowd...for the amount of effort involved, I wouldn't discount the fj80 front just for it's baby differential...

 

[Gumby]

I was unable to fit 80 buckets reasonably on a 40. I have custom buckets on a 55 axle with Exploder springs on my 55.

I did it as an engineering exercise. I wouldn't do it again and certainly not on a road vehicle, let alone to make one a better road handling vehicle.
It does wheel pretty good, but it took a long time and wasn't easy.

 

[rusty_tlc]

I actually like leaves a lot. Once you get them all dialed in they are hard to beat.

......

Cheers

My problem is I get the leaves dialed in wheel them for a season and they get too flexy, I'm forever rebuilding the leaf packs on my FJ40.
They are working pretty good right now.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

simple; stop wheeling...

 

[dirtyboots]

Here's my .02 for all the known variables:

Control arms

X2 for rmp's suggestion to look at spring under as an excellent idea (least complicated and best likely results)

good luck post up what you decide and your thoughts to help out future decision makers please