Panhard Location Help (1 Viewer)

[AnGoose]

This may not be the right spot for this, but my account is new and I'm not allowed to post in the suspension forum yet I guess. I've got a 1st gen 4Runner I'm in the process of 3 linking with Brians 4WU kit. It's a dream and he's made it crazy easy. The issue I'm running into is that I'm not entirely sure where/how to mount my panhard. I know the basics of it; parallel to the drag link and all that, but I'm unsure of if that means at ride height, or otherwise. Does it need to be the same length as the drag link? Also, with the way my steering box is mounted the pitman arm is not level, so the draglink moves up and down slightly. Does this mean I need to mount my steering box vertical and get a flat pitman arm (which I probably should have done in the first place) or will making the panhard parallel to it while the steering is centered and as close to ride height as I can? How perfect does it need to be, I'm hoping to put some highway miles on this rig as well as offroad so I want to avoid bump steer as much as I can. Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[aztoyman]

I'm in the middle of this right now myself. I don't know about crazy easy. Getting everything in a small space without hitting has been a challenge for me. But I am sticking a 3.4 in as well.

Look at the instructions for the panhard bracket placement and that's where it goes. There's a little room to shift it and you will probably fine tune the position so just tack welds until you're completely done.

Brian says when looking from the front of the truck to the rear, the panhard bar should be perfectly parallel to the drag link. Yes at ride height. So you're probably going to have to relocate your steering box unless you get lucky. I just did mine a day or two ago. I'm working with a bare frame though so it was already off.

Scroll down and check out my build thread. Also, Brian is pretty good about answering texts.

I'm using my TG high steer pitman arm.

 

[AnGoose]

Yeah, you're probably right on the steering box aspect. I was really hoping to leave it there as I was quite happy with my use of space in getting it that far forward with minimal hacking. Back to redesigning that I suppose. I'll go ahead and order a flat pitman arm while I'm at it, I've heard you can get a better turning radius with those. You are correct about the instructions being a little unspecific, but that's just the nature of the beast. Brian can't account for the differences of everyone's truck. I should probably start a build thread of my own at some point so folks with more knowledge than I can tell me I'm doing it wrong as I go. Thanks much for the info, I'll definitely be robbing motivation from your thread!

 

[AnGoose]

And I meant "crazy easy" as opposed to trying to design my own. I tried that briefly and discovered that I really don't have the background to pull that off.

 

[aztoyman]

I don't know if you need a flat pitman arm. Maybe get dimensions and mock one up before you spend the cash?

Absolutely right about Brian's engineered kit vs designing one. Out of my wheelhouse as well.

Good luck with your build.

Scott

 

[ntsqd]

For the parallel trac-bar to work right it also has to be the same length as the drag-link. That's not always so easy to do. It's not hopeless though, as long as the arcs the axle end of each are pretty close to each other for the first ~1" of down travel and 2"-3" of up travel then it will work. I think most ideal is set the drag-link such that it runs downhill to the axle by about an inch to inch and half so that the first inch to inch and half of up travel results in a level drag-link.

Can use a plumb-bob and a measuring tape to lay this all out full scale on the garage floor. Scribe the arcs using a string held in place by a buddy and some chalk or a carpenter's pencil. Within the travel range mentioned above if the horizontal distance at any given height is not more than, say 1/8" to maybe 3/16" greater than the shortest horizontal distance between the arcs it should work OK. Ideally that shortest distance will be at or near ride height.

Granted, this is leaf spring suspension but I ended up using a Skye Mfg flat pitman and a heavily modified old school doubled steering arm to get the drag link to clear everything.
Started out with this:

Ended up with this:

These days it's much more formulaic and much less cut and try.