Today,,,, I went retained....

[SLC99Disco]

I figured that today was as good a day as any to build some spring retainers for the rear of my 99 D1. I cut off the welded in cones and preped the spring bucket with some fancy Rust-o-leum paint.

I used 3/16 thick 2" wide steel cut just slightly longer than the diameter of the spring. Then I used the factory lower spring retainer to mark the holes for drilling. Once I drilled out the holes I painted the new retainers with more Rust-o-leum

For the upper spring retainers I made some spacers to go between the two pieces of metal so that the metal didnt become too bent while torqueing down the bolts.

After getting both sides finished up I went down to the place where I am use an RTI ramp. There is definately less flex on the rear, but,,,,, I can get to almost the same place on the ramp as before when I had drop out cones. I think that this is because the front end now actually flexes! It is so much more balanced with the rear doing approximately 65% of the work and the front doing 35%.

After ramping it I decided to head up to the B to play in the some dirt to see how it felt off road. Gotta say that there really wasnt anywhere I could go with cones that I cant go with the springs retained. Plus its is SO much more quiet while wheeling :applause:

I really like having the springs retained! I cant wait to see how it will behave in Moab. :victory:

 

[marc olivares]

:applause:

welcome to the other side

 

[rover4x4]

the right side?

do you have a locker

 

[SLC99Disco]

the right side?

do you have a locker

Not yet,,,,, trying to decide if I want to go with Rover stuff, or do the Toy V-6 third member swap

 

[FIVESPDDISCO]

what shock are you using?

 

[post]

I figured that today was as good a day as any to build some spring retainers for the rear of my 99 D1. I cut off the welded in cones and preped the spring bucket with some fancy Rust-o-leum paint..

What made you ditch the cones? Just wondering what the reason behind your decision was. I haven't had any problems with my cones besides feeliing a little uneasy on off camber situations. appreciate any info.

 

[SLC99Disco]

what shock are you using?

Right now I just have some cheap Pro-comps,,, soon to be Bilstien 7100's:drool:

 

[SLC99Disco]

What made you ditch the cones? Just wondering what the reason behind your decision was. I haven't had any problems with my cones besides feeliing a little uneasy on off camber situations. appreciate any info.

Well,, its kind of a long story but,,,,, I am in the process of trying to build my Disco into a semi-prerunner. I want to be able to run dirt roads and two tracks at 35-40mph. And still be able to run trails like Behind the Rocks and Pritchet Canyon. Cones dont work to well when you get airborne,

 

[post]

Well,, its kind of a long story but,,,,, I am in the process of trying to build my Disco into a semi-prerunner. I want to be able to run dirt roads and two tracks at 35-40mph. And still be able to run trails like Behind the Rocks and Pritchet Canyon. Cones dont work to well when you get airborne,

cool, I'm considering retaining for the "stability" factor.

good luck on your pre-runner build.

 

[lwg]

Keep an eye on that 3/16" plate. I used 1/4" and still find that it can bend pretty easily on my RRC.

 

[SLC99Disco]

Keep an eye on that 3/16" plate. I used 1/4" and still find that it can bend pretty easily on my RRC.

Really? I was hoping that by using the 2" wide plate it would distribute the force enough not to bend the metal. I wonder if welding a rib onto each plate would help the stiffness of it.

 

[SLC99Disco]

Ok, so I finally took some pictures of full flex with the retainers.

The last picture is a shot of when I still had cones, for comparison. I think that I lost about 3 inches of travel in the rear, but the front seems to work much better.

 

[maxyedor]

You may want to run a limit strap too. I going to be running cones with straps, the straps will be on clevis pins so I can just unhook them at the trail head for rock crawling. The reason I say go with a strap and a retainer is that if your retainers are really strong, and you jump the truck (bound to happen in Baja) the axel will inevitably pull down on the springs, and stretch them, that leads to pre-mature sag in the springs. If your retainers aren't that strong, then they will just rip off when you get the axel in the air. Straps prevent either of those things from ahppening, and if you run a strap a little shorter than the total amount of drop in your suspension they will slow down the axel as they stretch right at the end and prevent the huge thunk that happens when the bottom drops out.

 

[SLC99Disco]

You may want to run a limit strap too. I going to be running cones with straps, the straps will be on clevis pins so I can just unhook them at the trail head for rock crawling. The reason I say go with a strap and a retainer is that if your retainers are really strong, and you jump the truck (bound to happen in Baja) the axel will inevitably pull down on the springs, and stretch them, that leads to pre-mature sag in the springs. If your retainers aren't that strong, then they will just rip off when you get the axel in the air. Straps prevent either of those things from ahppening, and if you run a strap a little shorter than the total amount of drop in your suspension they will slow down the axel as they stretch right at the end and prevent the huge thunk that happens when the bottom drops out.

I will keep that in mind, but I am going to try and run it like this and see what happens. If the springs end up sagging, it will just give me and excuss to replace them with RTE springs. If I have a problem, then I will switch to limiting straps.