Rear Springs and Torsion Bars

[RJ]

Ok, this might all seem a bit blonde but if you don't ask you don't gain knowledge.

1. Have just purchased some rear springs to go in the back of our 93 SWB Pajero. Are rear springs hard to fit or are there any special little tricks that might help me?

2. Torsion Bars: I understand all these tricks about adjusting the height via the torsion bars. How feasible is it to put extended length torsion bars in to left the nose higher or does this create other issues. Can you get longer torsion bars?

Cheers
Rod

[NJV6]

Springs are easy to do. Undo your anti roll bar - you could take it off and throw it if you wanted. To get it off involves a little tongue twisting and taking one shock absorber off on its bottom mount.

Then with the lower shock mounts undone, jack the body up high and put jack stands under the chassis. Lower the jack from under the diff and the springs will basically fall out. I have had to put a bottle jack bwtween the arms and the chassis before if the arms bind up on their bushes - this is usually only needed to get longer springs in.

Torsion bars, you don't get longer ones, they won't fit and generally you don't want heavy duty ones as it will ride even worse from the front. I think you have hydraulic lift? You can still wind yours up a bit but more than a couple of inches, it will ride poorly and is funnny feeling off road. The BJ flip will help this.

Winding your torsion bars up to lift it is not equalivant to uprated torsion bars.

[RJ]

Cheers for that, I will attack the springs next week along with the Ball joint flip.

Thanks for the info on the torsion bars, it was more a curiosity thing! I was looking on a web site advertising suspension products and they had different lengths of torsion bars. I guess these are for different models or even SWB and LWB etc. I was just curious if you could swap and change to fit longer bars.

I do have the hydraulic lift and, touch wood, it is still working well. So at this stage I can still gain some extra height if needed. In all honesty I am not using it as much these days.

Cheers for that

[RJ]

Hi All,

Ok with xj's help and use of his flash new garage we popped the new rear springs in, no problem. Job was relatively simple in the end. So, we have lifted the rear another 40mm - 60mm.
I have completed the ball joint flip and also inserted a suspension kit on the front.

Now question is how high can we wind up these torsion bars? At the moment there is about 60mm height difference front to back. Basically it looks a bit like a drag truck. I realise that I will never get 60mm out of the torsion bar wind up, but how far can I go? I have been told that I shouldn't wind them up too much by some people and then told to go for the max by others!

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Rod

[meece4x4]

Ive wound my old Gen 1 Bars up to so the nose is 50mm higher than before you start to loose a fair bit articulation, shaving the bumpstops can bring back more than half the lost travel (ive bought a spare set off tardme to shave thus keeping the set of original ones to go back in if mr wof man objects) I wouldnt want to shave too much off the stops as ive always been worried about the front CV angle .. to much and it will start to bind on full droop and could break things.



i did the same mod to my Diahatsu Feroza and gained a good 2 inch lift (same setup as my Gen 1 Paj ... cart spring rear and torsion bar front) however i did find that the lack of droop after winding them up that much a bit of a pain so i dropped them back to factory hieght and went for a modest 2 inch body lift instead.

[RJ]

I have shaved the bump stops.
Will deal with WOF man if he works that one out!
Was concerned that the higher the torsion bars are wound up that I might create some sort of weakness somewhere else. Or can we just wind them up as far as they can go?

Cheers

[meece4x4]

I have shaved the bump stops.
Will deal with WOF man if he works that one out!
Was concerned that the higher the torsion bars are wound up that I might create some sort of weakness somewhere else. Or can we just wind them up as far as they can go?

Cheers

you could wind them up as high as you can just watch your CV angle with over shaved bumpstops. (dont you just love IFS ) ... however that is going to serously affect articulation, you will have plenty of UP travel but very little droop, havnt tested the Paj out in anger yet with my wind but i do know my Fez was crap offroad with more than a 25mm bar wind, forever cocking a front wheel off the ground and with the open front diff instant loss of traction.

If you have a front locka then cocking a leg up wont be so much of a problem .. wind the bastards up ... the higher you go tho the harsher the ride in the front tho .. the front of the Feroza felt like it wanted to skip sideways sometimes when it hit a pothole with the bars wound right up (60mm is pretty much all you can get out of them) but then again she was a light beastie the Paj's are somewhat heavier in the nose

[NJV6]

HI, I wouldn't be going to high, once you have done the BJ fkip you can get some good height out of the front but I would be looking at free wheeeling hubs to save your cv's turning on the road - it'll make the rubbers last a bit longer.

Typically the higher you wind them up close to the bump stops makes them jumpy off road at mecce eluded to. It is much nicer to have some down travel.

The Paj does have a nice strong front end so even with it would up you shouldn't have any dramas unless your into breaking things.

[RJ]

Cheers team, good info!
Think I will do it in increments and small steps.
Then I can monitor the lift as opposed to the on and off road performance.

Further to that the next plan is to fit a winch. I have had the this brain wave of attempting to fit the winch amongst the existing front bumper. I have checked around the web and found a few examples. If anyone has done something simialr here I would be grateful of any problems, issues, photos or ideas. Essentially I was going to get a plate built that sits between the chassis rails and houses the winch, then modify the bumper to fit around the winch. I thought I might trim the underside of the front bumper, mainly in front of the wheels, to help improve my entry angle. Any thoughts ideas etc greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Rod

[meece4x4]

lol like minds there ... im just about to buy a 9500lb winch off tardme to chuck on mine ... just a cheepie Runva one as it's only for the odd use, tho it will give me something to do with my 15 days off over the christmas break wooohooo

[tgaguy1]

Now question is how high can we wind up these torsion bars? At the moment there is about 60mm height difference front to back. Basically it looks a bit like a drag truck. I realise that I will never get 60mm out of the torsion bar wind up, but how far can I go? I have been told that I shouldn't wind them up too much by some people and then told to go for the max by others!

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Rod

The above truck was raised 5" and sitting on 33's. The rear had SWB patrol springs. Now the front had a ball joint flip and shaved bump stops. I shaved them by half. I had no problem with broken CV,s or bent steering idler arms (some on this site have so I paid attention to this). It was only used for light to medium duty 4 wheeling. The heavist it saw was Thompsons during the winter. The point I am making is the front end was level with the rear on standard torsion bars with alot of wind. It had good up travel and exceptional droop. I could run 35's on it with out rub, yet the on road handling was better than standard. I know this, because before I got rid of it I put the standard springs back in it and lowered the front back down. The difference in road manners was very noticable. My replacement Pajero has the same setup and it is as capible as most club trucks, yet it retains good road manners. I have spent a bit of time dicking around with the setups on Pajeros so if you want to pick my brains, PM me. Dixie has seen how high my truck is and how it goes on thompsons towing out ill equipped joe public, ask him what he thinks.

Jase.

[RJ]

Cheers Jase,

Potentially I think you could be right, I will still do the small increments but I am keen to get it close to level, front to back. Thanks for the info thats great.

Cheers
Rod

[pajeroboy]

sorry to sort of thread jack but in on the same topic, im looking at doing a bit of a whind of my torsion bars.i kind understand the process of doing it,front of truck off ground,losen locknut and then do up/tightn the bar bolt.but i have hurd that u whind them 4 a bit but then you gotta take the bar out and turn back down refit and go again,is this rite/can anyone make it clearer as to what i gotta do never done them before

once again sorry for jacking thread

[NJV6]

sorry to sort of thread jack but in on the same topic, im looking at doing a bit of a whind of my torsion bars.i kind understand the process of doing it,front of truck off ground,losen locknut and then do up/tightn the bar bolt.but i have hurd that u whind them 4 a bit but then you gotta take the bar out and turn back down refit and go again,is this rite/can anyone make it clearer as to what i gotta do never done them before

once again sorry for jacking thread

Just wind!

[pajeroboy]

ok but what happens when the bolt runs out of thread?

[NJV6]

ok but what happens when the bolt runs out of thread?

Your vehicle will be unstable and a pig to drive.

Unless you have put a heavy bar on the front then you may need to re index them. All this means is you pull the torsion bar off ( they are splined) and rotate is on the spline.

[pajeroboy]

ok then big thanks for help.

[WACKO]

if you run out of thread your way to high. dont worry bout it. i didnt use spacers but when i did my balljoint flip i got it sitting nice and level and still had HEAPS of thread left. had a sore arm after tho... also, if either of you have the incab height adjustable suspension, it still works after all this lifting. i stoped using mine tho as when i pressed the button to raise it, it would sit on the upper bump stops and literally had no down travel.

Sam

[pajeroboy]

ok thanks guys,never done them before so was bit confused,mite try it on sat as the gf has work

[RJ]

Cheers team, good info! Will post some photos once completed. Now I am starting to wonder if I am to high in the rear. Balancing this all out could be a mission. Guess we wait and see!

[NJV6]

I'd say you are! Why do you need to go that high - remember with the way the rear arms work a Paj the more you lift it the less down travel you will have.

I have 90mm between bump stops on the rear. And that clear's 33's with 30mm higher body (factory lift for 3.5) than yours with no dramas.

Glen

[RJ]

I'd say you are! Why do you need to go that high - remember with the way the rear arms work a Paj the more you lift it the less down travel you will have.
I have 90mm between bump stops on the rear. And that clear's 33's with 30mm higher body (factory lift for 3.5) than yours with no dramas.
Glen

Hi Glen,

Can only see how we get on this week, as I try to wind them up. Looking at it the photo tgaguy1 posted on page 1, I think I am at a simialr height in the rear at the moment. Will let you know how I get on. I have kept the old springs just in case!

Cheers
Rod

[RJ]

Hi team,

Just a progress on the torsion bar wind up. We managed to gain about 30-40mm. But it appears the passenger side bar had heaps of thread left on it and the drivers side appeared to be at the full extent of its thread. Are the two supposedly evenly matched from the factory or can you expect for them to alter over time. I did hear that this can also indicate a slight twist in the chassis. The other thought is to loosen off the drivers side and pour some CRC down there as there could be crap on the thread or something!

Bump stops appear to be clear at this stage, but offroad use will determine the impact there, I guess.

Anyway, any thoughts on one being possibly at the end of the thread and not the other?

Cheers

[meece4x4]

Anyway, any thoughts on one being possibly at the end of the thread and not the other?

Cheers

One torsion bar lost some of it's tension maybe, could mean it has to be wound up more to gain the same amount of height??

[RJ]

One torsion bar lost some of it's tension maybe, could mean it has to be wound up more to gain the same amount of height??

You might be right! I guess we could look at re-indexing. Alternatively I suppose we could be looking at new bars.

Cheers

[NJV6]

Did you try lowering one down a bit and raising the otherand having them even?

Before you get new bars, try this.

[RJ]

Did you try lowering one down a bit and raising the otherand having them even?

Yep, we did try lowering and raising them. At this stage we have evened them out. There seems to be reasonable gaps between the bump stops, but have yet to test offfroad. Also the truck seems to drive ok on the road. The handling does't seem to have changed dramatically, although I have yet to get on a highway.

One good thing it was easier than I thought!