Early bronco front suspension under a 55

[poseidon]

Hello,

I have been wanting to lift my FJ55 for some time now. I have thought about the SOA but I ma not sure I want that much lift.

My brother is a early bronco owner/fan. He has his lifted already but just bought new radius arms and springs.... Anyway he has offered to sell me for almost nothing the old 2 over setup that was in his bronco.

I have access to a good welder and have fab skills. I don't have a whole lot of money for this project right now because of my new house.

I have done some looking and I know I will need to get some wedges and weld them onto my axle housing. I will also need to weld in spring perches and shock mounts but that looks like they could easily be made from square tube. I will also need some brackets in the back for the radius arms to mount to.

what I am curious about is:

Do the Early bronco radius arm setup have more front end flex than than the stock springs in an fj55?

Will I run into any major problems or major expences?

Also in my research I have run into the term antisquat and have no idea what that is.

I am standing in my flamesuit ready for your replies.

E

 

[ridgerunner]

Look in the 55 section for the steriod piggy- Ford stuff grafted onto the factory axle.

 

[DBS311]

I am an early Bronco owner/fan as well. I would be all for this if you were using the lengthened arms from Duff or Cage. In my opinion, the stock arms are just too short and I think you will lose travel compared to the leaf springs. Again, that depends on what you are running now. If you have stock leaf springs, then travel might be comparable. I have been wanting to do the same mod to my SOA 62. I would love to get rid of the leafs up front and run some coilovers. If you check out Cage's website, they have mounts to convert any solid axle to a Ford radius arm setup.

Another way to look at this if you do use the EB front suspension, is that you could always upgrade to longer arms down the road.

 

[Mace]

Funny, my best friend is a bronco fan. he was always jealous of my front flex..

 

[numtel]

My brother did a SAS on his Bronco II using an EB axle with a wristed radius arm setup. It flexes just about as much as a decent leaf setup.

Read about it on his build thread on pirate
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=465409

 

[poseidon]

If I do go through with this project I will be using the extended radius arms from the beginning.

DBS311:
You mentioned "Cage's website" do you have a link for them. I did a search and couldn't come up with anything. I have been looking at Duffs website but emailed my brother about other vendor options. I know he has a lot of Duff parts on his bronco including the springs he would be giving me that are 2 over Duffs.

Right now I am trying to figure out if I can do this fairly inexpensive. Otherwise I will be considering springs from Belton, Alcon or maybe a SOA with what I have.

I have been making a supply list for this and have removed things like shocks and longer brake lines that I would need with any lift that I do. I have also removed the arms and springs because I would have them already. So far this is what I have on the list:
Ford shock towers
Ford spring mounts
EB radius arm caps
EB wedges to weld to axle
EB C bushings


What I have come up with so far is that I will have to first determine how much lift I want and lift the back, possibly with an add-a-leaf or something like that.

Try to determine how many inches that the springs are once they are compressed with the weight of the 55.

Do a little math to determine the correct distance back on the frame the mounts should be.

Then get the radius arms attached to the body.

Attach the spring mounts to the correct height so the rig sits level front to back.

Set the angle of the pinion toward the TC and mark welding location for wedges

Strip down front axle.

Weld on wedges

Sit cruiser on jackstands for cut and turn on axle to get correct caster angle.

Finish cut and turn and rebuild front axle.

Thanks
E

 

[mooker82]

As an early Bronco owner Duff's stuff is nice for a DD. If you want a lot of flex the wildhorses, BC Broncos, or Cage kits are better. BC has a wristed axle housing kit that is awesome if you decide to swap over to the dana 44. www.cageoffroad.com is the website mentioned above. He has awesome products too. If you want flex the stock ford towers are too short. You will need hoops or atleast the F250 shock mounts. Also I would go ahead and use the longer radius arms from one of the vendors. To me theres no need to weld on the stock Bronco mounts only to have to hack them off later. Early Broncos flex very well and the coil spring ride is nicer than leafs. I would think though that the spring rate for the early Bronco would not be enough for a 55 series though but then again Ive never weighed either.

 

[DBS311]

Mooker beat me to posting the link for Cage. Anyway, check out their mounts for a SAS. I would go with those because then you don't need to try and grind and weld two wedges into alignment. You completely avoid having to use axle wedges.

Also, I would advise staying away from wristed radius arms. Some like them, but I am not a big fan. That was the band-aid for more flex until the longer arms came out and now we have the Cage/Duff arms that have the 2 extra bushings at the axle mount. Much more stable in hairy situations when compared with the wristed arms.

 

[Mace]

I still don't see why you would do this if you only get about the same flex as a SPringover..

If you are going to link a cruiser, do it right..

 

[bkfj40]

what size tires are you looking to put on the 55? 35's? 36's? if so, do a spring over and be done with it...

tried...
tested...
proven...

Lance at IronPig Offroad spent a lot of time grafting together an 80 setup onto a 55 - when it was all said and done, it went to the parts pile...
bk

 

[Niner]

I 4 linked the front of my 40 using the frame buckets and springs from a early bronco. It functions well, but as with most coil suspenstions you get a lot of axle bounce, and recoil. Because I didn't use the radius arms I have excellent flex. My design is old but when I did it in '93 there weren't any calculators, except what the drag cars where using in the rear of the cars. The technology has evolved a lot, and it does work mine has be tested for 13 years now, but I would probably do the spring over until you can do it properly, by todays standards.

 

[ridgerunner]

BC has a wristed axle housing kit that is awesome if you decide to swap over to the dana 44.

I am no engineer, but I always thought a wristed axle was the most ridiculous bandaid for a suspension design. Tire travel shouldn't depend on the twist of an axle housing.

 

[poseidon]

I still don't see why you would do this if you only get about the same flex as a SPringover..

If you are going to link a cruiser, do it right..

I appreciate your input and am not try to upset you but:

First of all I didn't want to SOA my cruiser. I may end up doing that but I thought this may be a solution ot my dilema.

My goal when I set out was not to link a cruiser. My goal was to see if I could swap one antequated system to a diffrent antequated system that had greater parts availibility and upgrades becase right now I have almost no options.

I see a benifit to the EBsystem because it is not some homebrew system and was engineered to be safe, mass produced and used for many years by a major auto manufacturer.
Also I must say there is a certain appeal to knowing that if I break or damage a suspension component that I can just call or stop by any number of shops nationwide and get the parts I need and posibly be able to pick parts from a shelf.

I still have not decided I was just asking folks that know more about suspensions and Broncos.

I was also wondering if extended radius arm EB suspension has more flex or road manners than a spring system under a 71 LC. I know in the stock configuration of the EB setup had less flex than the stock LC, but the extended arms seem to have a great deal of flex. I am still not sure this question has been answered to my satisfaction.

There were 2 things that caused me to consider this option.

1. I have a FJ55 and I am not sure I wanted the full 5-6 inches of lift that a SOA produces. If you want less lift than than a SOA the options are custom Alcans or imported Beltons springs unless you want to graft a suspension from another vehicle.

2. I was in my brothers shop looking at his bronco and the new upgrades he had made to it. I asked him what he was gonna do with all the old stuff and he asked"do you want it?" I paused and had to think a little bit becaue I hadn't thought about it. I told him I was gonna do some research into if it was feasable and get back to him.

 

[Advent]

I think you'd be very hard pressed to get the EB stuff under a '55 without lifting it 6". Stuff's going to stick up above the axle that wasn't there before. The '55 frame was never designed for a panhard.

If you're worried about breaking the '55 front suspension with less than 6" of lift, you must be driving a LOT harder than most people.

Edit: And if you were to swap the EB setup into a '55, it becomes 'some homebrew setup'. All the Ford engineering just went out the window.

 

[DBS311]

With the right coil and the long radius arms, your front end would flex better than a SOA setup. The only reason I say this is because I have both setups. My EB with BC coils and long radius arms flexes more (has more travel) than my 62 with SOA conversion. I am talking specifically about the front axle here, not just an overall ramp score.

As Advent mentioned, you will still end up with a large lift (6"+) by grafting on the Ford suspension. The coils are another factor you have to consider. EB are a lot lighter than any Cruiser, so the coils IMO will be way too soft for this application. With the correct spec coil, it will give you more travel than your standard SOA.

 

[Wayneraintree]

First of all I didn't want to SOA my cruiser. ...

I have a FJ55 and I am not sure I wanted the full 5-6 inches of lift that a SOA produces.

Is it possible to reduce the lift of the SOA when you do it? Maybe use your worn out springs.. if they are... or have the worn stock springs slightly relaxed... i thought there may be a thread out there on low SOA but I could not find any on the search here and on Pirate.

I know exiled has a low SOA on relaxed OME heavies' on his 60. Maybe you could somehow keep the SOA to 5 " and be happy?

Let us know what you decide links and coils seem to be really bouncy on the road from what I have seen, at least non-stock applications anyway. I am sure there is a "right" way to do it and not be bouncy but if you can fab, ect. a low SOA might be perfect. The ride on the road on my SOA 55 is nice and I think my lift was over 6" but there were leaves added to front and rear (one in the front, two in the back). HTH

 

[speeed_dmonx]

RADIUS ARM MODS---2bigbronco's.com I believe(not positive) gives measurements as well as kinds of ways the guys have lengthened and completely fabbed their own radius arms...and these trucks are with 460's dana 60's and 44"s---I cannot remember the other site--when I do I will shoot it to you--

 

[Mace]

RADIUS ARM MODS---2bigbronco's.com I believe(not positive) gives measurements as well as kinds of ways the guys have lengthened and completely fabbed their own radius arms...and these trucks are with 460's dana 60's and 44"s---I cannot remember the other site--when I do I will shoot it to you--

So, by completely renovating the stock bronco setup you can sort of beat a stock 40.. Cool...