Offroad-Express

I just went in for the second time to get a cert on my sas bighorn and it turns out that new springs arent enough to get a cert funnily enough. Ive got a couple of issues and not really quite sure how to resolve them so would appreciate any advice. Basically at the stage where Ive spent enough and don't wanna throw heaps of money at this to find it still wont pass cert.

It has too much body roll going round round about. Personally I didn't think it was bad at all since putting sway bar in the back, ya don't wanna try driving without that! So I'm thinking making a cruiser front sway bar fit? OR lowering truck as cert man thinks its a bit high anyway. But that wont work because of the next issue...and I don't wanna loose all my ground clearance!

Bump steer- it pulls left under braking- due to draglink being on a horrible angle up to standard isuzu steering box and pitman arm. Not easily resolved because as it is pitman arm has hardly any room above diff head under flex. And I have a funny feeling if I put a cruiser box on, the draglink will hit the chassis under flex as its not jacked up enough, and under flex my track bar comes really close to the chassis anyway.

It shudders under braking - I suspect this is just my brake disks as they have some pitting from rust? Easy fix if thats the prob just get them machined down a bit.

So yeah any ideas would be much appreciated esp if your sas has a cert! Oh and if your after a project feel free to pm me I'm open to all offers


As you can see front flexes well

And rear even better

you need the ask cert man what he needs to be done for him to sign it off
you then have to achieve this ...
this is not about what you or anyone else thinks .. its about what he thinks
and if you cannot apease him .. simply put you wont get a cert ..

have you asked the cert guy how he would fix this ?

how about a prado front end instead of leaf spring mate

vvega wrote:you need the ask cert man what he needs to be done for him to sign it off
you then have to achieve this ...
this is not about what you or anyone else thinks .. its about what he thinks
and if you cannot apease him .. simply put you wont get a cert ..

have you asked the cert guy how he would fix this ?

I certainly did ask mr cert man how to fix it. He had no idea. Said maybe lowering it would help. But thats not gonna work with steering components. Only other solution he had was sell it and it becomes someone elses problem.

turn the steering arm around and have the tie rod in the front then you could use a flater arm to stop it hitting
forget that viewed your photos again

coxsy wrote:how about a prado front end instead of leaf spring mate

was thinking along the lines of a prado back end and all the bits in between too... lots easier and cheaper but wheres the challenge in that!

If it were me, and i'm dodgy as hell, and yes i know its a public forum, but in order to fix the body roll i would ge some adjustable shocks and run them on their abbsolute hardest setting just for getting the cert.

If money is a limiting factor for getting adjustable shocks, get some old shocks that fit, drill a whole in side at the top, add some ATF, then put a small self tapping screw into the hole. The hole and screw will be hidden under the top stone gaurd of the shock, so undetectable unless its right off the ground on a hoist.

The ATF will stiffen them up like you wouldn't believe.

I have also used Fork Oil which you can buy in various weights for motor bike's. You can choose how hard it makes the shocks.

This is a tempory measure, just for WOF or cert purposes, and will be usless off road.

I have used it a few time's when i couldn't afford new shocks on road car's

Once the body roll issue is sorted, put your other shocks back on.

Harder shocks will cure it. Wheni lifted my 80 series, i also pulled the sway bars off. The only way to make it driveable was to put the adjustable shock's on, and have them up hard.

For the pulling to the left, have you checked your brake calipers??

Go put it on a rolling road brake testing machine thingy, it will measure if your brake's are working evenly. You might find they aren't, and thats whats causing the brake's to pull,

Get new disc's


Disclaimer:

The information i gave in this post is worth exactly as much as you paid for it

Mr Cert man if your reading, I would never think of doing something like that


I can probably score a sway bar for next to nothing and am hoping a panhard rod will fix bump steer. Disks are badly pitted where the brake pads had rusted away on it for years so think a good skim will stop the shudder... i hope

this might not help as i dont kno where you are in the country but you should find anuther cert guy,if hes telling you its no good then he should know how to fix it,my cert guy no matter what ive done or queried him on,he either says yes or do it like this and it will work and pass,to me sounds like your guy aint had alot of experience or is not familiar with 4wds and is choosing the easy way out of it,ive never heard of a cert guy sujjesting selling it lol

mhm beter try help out more practically aswell ,
um brakes id be definatly tending to go towards new set of disks and pads,just cleans things up and should get rid of all your trouble,ive had to do that to my surf
body roll,what about doing a combo,fit a sway bar from something similar in size,and put some slightly harder shocks in,got anymates you could borrow a set of to try out?see what sort of results you get and as for steeering cant offer anything there as ive never done a sas yet

muddyhilux wrote:this might not help as i dont kno where you are in the country but you should find anuther cert guy,if hes telling you its no good then he should know how to fix it,my cert guy no matter what ive done or queried him on,he either says yes or do it like this and it will work and pass,to me sounds like your guy aint had alot of experience or is not familiar with 4wds and is choosing the easy way out of it,ive never heard of a cert guy sujjesting selling it lol

I'd tend to agree with that, theres always two sides to every story so I wouldnt want to go knocking your certifier and although I dont really see it as his job to do all the hard hours designing your mods I'd sort of expect him to say what he requires to satisfy him to pass it

I don't know if it legal or not but are you able flip the taper for the ball joint on the pitman arm? so it's underneath so you won't have any clearance issues, any good engineer should be able to do that

moo wrote:I can probably score a sway bar for next to nothing and am hoping a panhard rod will fix bump steer. Disks are badly pitted where the brake pads had rusted away on it for years so think a good skim will stop the shudder... i hope

If they have been sitting around rusting away for years, to the point where the disc's are in that state, then chances are you have a seized caliper also, which will lead to the brake's pulling to one side. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to check the brake calipers first before modifying the panhard rod??

Yes it certainly did have siezed callipers threw them away and got new callipers and pads before i drove it anywhere. So yeah was too lazy to get disks skimmed just hit with sanding disc which hasnt removed pitting so pretty sure if i get them machined or just buy new ones or good cond 2nd hand ones should fix prob.

As for flipping bj on pitman arm to make draglink on a better angle unfortunately it would hit the top of my diff head under minor flex was gonna do that to start with but yeah just not enough space above diff. needs to be lifted more for that to work

Bighorn just passed cert. Thanks to everyone on here who gave advice. A terrano rear sway bar fits perfectly and eliminates all body roll and flex so making up some disconnects now. A panhard rod same length and parallel to drag link fixed bump steer and pull to the left. Having the discs skimmed fixed the shudder so its just like driving a standard bighorn now.

oh good stuff mate,glad to hear it all worked out ok for ya and by the sounds of it not at to much more expense

Sweet!!!!!!