patrol 5" lift problems

[BenDover]

Gday guys,
After putting my 5" lift in my patrol there has been a few problems. But sowly i thougt id work through them. The biggest problem is the higher you go the worse it plays up and problems are magnified. I have done everything correctly. 5" castor plates. Adjustable panhard rods. Big bore (tuff dog) shocks. Heavy duty steering damper. But NOBODY makes any good gear anymore. After driving home yesterday and hitting a few pot holes and it starting to shake from left to right violently before settling down again. "very much the same as a negative castor angles" I cracked it and though id fix this crap up.

I had already taken it to the tire shop and checked the castors. Perfect and well with in the regulations. It had to be my panhard rods!! I thought id ring around first and ask all the 4x4 shops if someone has fixed these problems up yet. Nobody was any help at all. And i asked them if they stocked tuffdog panhard rods. "yep, and they run poly urathane bushes."

ahh... I thought easy i will just race upto nissan and get some stock rubber ones and replace them. After getting back home and pulling my panhard rods out. They are the same rubber ones. Same code everything...

I checked everything for play. There was 1 mm of play in my bolts that go into the steel sleeve in the panhard bush. Being late i thought id put a few welds on the bolt and grind them back and see what happens. A little perswaysion with the mallet and in she goes. But i also found another 2 mm of play in my panhard chassi mount (the bolt hole) so whacked a couple of spot welds on that aswell. Did both from and rear.

Although there is still 1mm of play in the Big panhard eylet (the diff side) Made about 50% inprovement.

I found it was both play in my front and rear (being a coil cab) that was greatly contributing to the problem. My wheel bearing where tight aswell. Apart from the rims wobbling in and ou of the tire (which a thicker side wall will fix) its not bad.

Im off to the steel shop in the next few days the get some solid billet bushes made (precise measurements) and i will put a groove in it and tap the panhard rod eyelet (what the bush press fits into) and put a greace nipple. I will also make billet lower control arm bushes aswell. And get rid of ALL of its play.

So in my opinion 5" is too high unless you want to address these issues that nobody talks about or fixes and people just put up with it.

next project. Making (or fixing) these crappy return to centre heavy duty steering dampers. Which has an alloy clamp mount to hold the spring. Which i have already broken once. It needs to be a threaded sleeve with a locking bolt. To make it much stronger and easier to adjust.

BD

[ozscott]

Mate - my brother specialises in his shop in high lifts (ie starting at 5 inches). He works up comp vehicles mostly. Raising by 5 inches and beyond is a bit of an art to get right. They fabricate a lot of things and do a number of adjustments to get things right. If your in Brissy/Redland area PM me and I will give you his details.

Cheers

[BenDover]

Thanks ozscott, I was going to take it to the truck whisperer when i had time. But unfortunately i never ever do. I have fixed it now though. I did everything i could though before this. Wheel alignment, ballanced, tightened the wheel bearings and removed a king pin schim from each side. But with about 12mm of play between the front and back panhard rod, it all adds up when your 5" higher. I will only be running 1 billet panhard rod bush and leaving the other rubber.

But if you could mate. Ask your bro how tyres will affect it? I have had a bunch of different replies from my mates and am still unsure...
A mate just got back from his desert trip and said his truck started doing it aswell (due to lack of tyre pressure)

I want to go 33's 12.5 on 15 x 10" american alloys. I know that it gets rid of all the small bumps in the road. But will it help? or make my vibrations worse? To correct my 50% statement. It doesnt do it anymore, so its about 80% better (especially after i pulled my front swaybar pins) but i still feel the vibrations just not as bad. Im only running stock wheels at the moment!!!

BD

[SeaHunt]

This is probably a stupid question but won't you change the tensile strength of those bolts by welding on them. ie they will get brittle and snap?

[BenDover]

Hmmm probably, "laugh" But this is only temp seahunter. To see if it even fixes the problem. It was very late at night and nothing was open and i couldnt leave it/drive it the way it was for 1 more day. I will get correct size and tension bolts and get billet bushes to fit (perfectly) to the bolts.

[MY-TopEnder]

Seems strange... i've helped mates do 4 trucks with 5" King Springs and a combo of drop boxes and castor plates and had no problems so far.

I'll have a chat to one of them and see what their thoughts on the matter is.

[BenDover]

Thanks My Top Ender. Putting it in is the easy part. But just my luck i always have problems... Or im just very fussy. I even changed springs to softer because i thought it didnt help any changing from a heavy deisel engine to an alloy 1. Everything so far has made it a bit better but.. Im still not happy with it yet. I have been compairing it to my mates 80 series. 6" (4" really) Dobinsons, procomp shocks. Castor bushes and 35 tyres. His is as smooth as a baby's b.....
BD

[ozscott]

This is the post from Redlands 4WD Centre at Capalaba in response to your post mate. Its hard for them to diagnose over the net, but it might be useful. Cheers:

" The panhard rod bolts rely on clamping pressure to stop the rod from moving. If he’s going to ‘bush’ it he will have to be vigilant about greasing it and also frequently removing it to ensure that it still slips through the bush because grease alone won’t remove all the contaminants. Neoprene bushes are not the answer – we often eliminate shakes by changing from neoprene to rubber.

I will not use ‘RTC’ steering dampeners as this only amplifies the problem as it loads the spring in one direction or another. The only time I use RTC dampeners is on say a 40# with 44” swampers. When you turn to full lock the tyres will ‘lay over’ and not want to stand up again – ‘return to centre’. Otherwise I just use a good 35mm foam cell dampener. We use RAW dampeners.

Apart from wheel bearings, pivot bearings, panhard bushes, tie rod ends, steering rod ends, chassis cracks around the steering box (88-89 GQs), worn steering boxes, the lesser cause of control arm bushes should not be overlooked (the rubber separates from the steel centre bush).

Castor plates do not relieve the stress in the control arm chassis bush, thereby ‘pre-tensioning’ the arm to bounce. You are better off with aftermarket control arms (from an off road perspective) or drop boxes (from an on road perspective). Drop boxes bring the angle of the control arms back down and this makes a huge difference.

Tyres – well that is a completely different ballgame. Tyres are what start ‘the shakes’. The wear, freeplay etc in the rest of the components is what amplifies the shakes. GQs in particular are known to have a ‘90K shimmy’ even at standard height. Nissan have never admitted to having a problem but they tried to fix it with the GUs by widening the diff and making the offset of the wheels shallower to place more weight back over the pivot bearings. This decreases the ‘scrub radius’. GUs have less problems with the shakes than the GQs. People on other forums have suggested removing shims from the pivot bearings to place them under more load. They maintain that this fixes the problem. It doesn’t – well not long term anyway. The pivot bearings grind themselves into a new position and the shakes start again – except now you have stuffed pivot bearings as well.

But anyway – back to wheels and tyres. If you go and put wider rims on you are increasing the scrub radius again. A 10” rim is 2” wider than an 8” rim – on the outside – ie. All the extra width is outwards. This will dramatically increase the chances of the shakes. The best rims to use are Nissan rims as they spigot onto the hub. Many aftermarket rims locate on the wheel studs only. Often people can do the right thing – Nissan rims, 285/75/16 tyres etc and still get the wobbles – change the wheels and tyres with their mate’s Nissan and the problem goes away – AND – it doesn’t always create a problem with their mate’s vehicle.

So many tyre shops state that the rims and tyres are perfectly balanced. But 4WDers let their tyres down and deform their tyres over large obstacles, then pump them back up and drive on the road. Wheel balancing can only balance the tyre off the ground yet the tyre rotates on the vehicle with a flat spot at the bottom. (if you let your tyre pressures down on road and you increase the flat spot – or increase the amount of deformation) The tyre is continually deforming on road and may have belt shifting due to the abuse that we give them off road. I maintain that a well balanced all terrain tyre be used for on road (including sand & gravel roads) and a ‘play set’ for the more serious off road use.

Even though we fit many high lifted suspensions, we always recommend only lifting the vehicle as high as you have to. The 4-5” lift should only be for people with serious off road intentions. Our suspension kits START at $2800 plus fitting and only go upward from there. There is far more to suspension than just springs and shocks. We even lift SWB GQs 6-7” with no problems – but it costs."

[BenDover]

Thanks OZSCOTT, I am a hardcore 4x4'r at heart :). And I am planning to ditch the caster plates and run propper control arms for more travel and better handleing (the pivot point ones like in the picture) and also run extreme offroad tyres for the bush only (that are speed rated aswell). But I am going oversea's soon and dont have the time or money now for that. So... I guess i will leave the tyres that are on there on!! For now until I can take the time to address all these issues.

I have checked the chassis for crackes.
Tightened and checked my steering box (allthough i have found a small fluid leak)
Wheel bearing perfect
Took 1 shim out of the top king pin on my ball joint (each side)
Got rid of 50% of the play in my panhard rods

I dont know whats left. Everything is tight and perfect. I think I will get the rims, tyres and pivot point control arms and drop it off to redlands when i get back from OS. I just dont have the time to do it hey. Work and deadlines are killing me. But i didnt even want to drive it, the way it was. But its alright now.

Made a big difference aswell disconnecting my front sway bar pins.

Thanks for all the help and advice.
BD

[ozscott]

My pleasure mate- good luck. I love offroading but my 2 Discoveries are pretty standard - bigger tyres. My brother is pretty serious about off roading and his Defender with a 400+hp 327 Chev and dual TF cases will be increasing its comp presence soon.

Cheers