Here are the panhard mounts. The bracket on the axle, and the finished home made mount on the frame.

Perhaps some of you will catch it. I noticed a SERIOUS error in my design plan. The axle bracket for the panhard rod is only 1" away from the frame (DOHHHHHHH). So I'll be cutting that off and making my own bracket that drops lower.

 

these are the shock brackets. still hot from the cutting torch

why? because fire is cool!

 

Nice work and cool project

 

Looking good man. I'm currently doing an adj 4 bar also. The same but different.
Keep us posted on the AS numbers as I have no clue on where it needs to be I can only find info on "hitting the tires", nothing about street manors.

 

update, conclusion, or any more observations?

 

hmmm...nothing really new to tell. Like I said before, it's a whole new truck!

I'm running the lower bar 2 up in the front, and the upper bar 1 down in the front. This has brought the traction up to a pretty darned decent point. The truck will still roast the tires if I punch it in 1st from a dig, but then again I have 4.56 gears and some basic Kumho Ecstas. I'm sure if I put drag radials on it would hook up just fine.

Best thing though is that the driving characteristics are predictable now. I can push the truck as hard as I want and when it breaks loose, the tires just spin (no more wheel hop). When the tires spin, just back off a touch to hook up and roll into it again.

Corners are also really fun with this truck. I'm using the aluminum LG motorsports G2 panhard rod from a Camaro for lateral location. Like everything else it uses rod ends so there is practically zero lateral shift during turns. Turns that used to be limited to 25mph have come up to 40-45mph. The rearend desperately needs a sway bar now since its rolling over.

So, overall very happy.

 

Why is it necessary to have the ability to adjust the frame mount side of the Panhard rod?

 

In the event that I wish to change the ride height any (smaller tires, raise the vehicle, etc.... whatever), I wanted the ability to keep the panhard rod horizontal (or as close as possible).

With this in mind, it was just as easy to drill 5 holes as 1 hole.

 

Thanks for posting all the pictures, it gives me the confidence to pretend that I am going to do a 4-link, too. Nice work.

Last questions, probably: Why was your truck all hoppity before the 4-link? Was it altered from stock before? What about the pinion angle, before and after?

 

I had the standard nightmare of leaf springs.

When leaf springs load up, they flex/twist and cause the wheels to slip. The resulting slip causes the springs to unload again. The tires "semi" hook up again (because they get slapped into the pavement by the unloading spring) and the process repeats. Load/unload/loud/unload......the result is the axle BOUNCES. Not only does it mean zero traction and absolutely no ability to control the vehicle, it also one of the leading causes of axle damage. The shock of the wheels hooking and unhooking repeatedly hammers bearings, cracks gears, and snaps axles.

The truck was lowered 5" in the rear but I had the pinion angle set to around 6degrees down (enough to deal with axle wrap and keep the pinion from going positive). I couldn't put traction bars on because the hangers I had wouldn't accept them.

Things only got worse when it rained or I went over rough patches in the road, so much that I near refused to drive the truck in the rain it was getting so bad (it literally scared me to drive on wet pavement). Now rain is kind of fun again. The truck is predictable and easy to manage IF the tires do slip.




Feel free to ask anything else.