Traveller rear suspension

Post by **moggyman64** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:58 pm

Hi All,

I have a fiat rear axle fittd to my traveller, off the shelf spax adjustable kit and off the shelf trailing arms. I have 7 leaf springs also.

My poblem is that when I go over a bump in the road, even minor ones I am not getting the damping effect I anticipated. I get a thud/bang and the rear bounces a bit. Is this suspesion too hard??? but it is very similar to the original suspension set up and I dont recall this sort of harsh ride when going over bumps in the road.

I have a 2ltr fiat twin cam fitted and am not getting to enjoy the upgrade.

There are 28 settings on the dampers but none of them seem to soften the ride.

I have thought about changing to 5 leaf springs but the traveller is designed to have 7. (isn't it?)

I am sure that coil over and turrets would be better but I dont want to get into that right now unless I have no other choice

Any Ideas on how to sort this out would be really appreciated.

Cheers

Keith

Post by **MarkyB** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:29 pm

How much clearance is there above the bump stops?
Also, how is it with a load in the back?

Post by **jonathon** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:27 pm

measure the distance between the top and bottom mounting bolts on the dampers with the car in ladened position. Remove the damper and fully open, measure this then repeat with the damper closed fully. if you have less than 2" difference between the fitted dimension and the fully closed one then the damper will bottom out. Check as suggested above the distance between the top of the bump stop and the stop plate on the chassis, again any less than 1.5" and it will bottom out on these.
If you need more length ie more useable damper travel then you need to move the mountings accordingly.
IMHO Spax are not the best dampers, go for Avo or Koni.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:34 pm

Does sound like it is simply bottoming out on the bump stops! You need to give the suspension room to move - the dampers can't 'damp' if the suspension immediately sits down on the bump stops. The stops can be cut back by ~ 1" maybe 2" - but as J ^^^^ says - you MUST check if the dampers have sufficient travel without bottoming on themselves. Are the dampers mounted vertically ?? Useless if not! Also - 7 leaf springs recently seem to have been 'melting' like chocolate - and losing all their 'spring'!

Post by **Peetee** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:13 pm

Are the dampers mounted vertically ?? Useless if not!

A sweeping statement if ever there was one. There are plenty of commercial vehicles out there with angled dampers. they will work with correctly calibrated damping.

Post by **moggyman64** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 9:37 pm

Thanks for all the comments,

I have carried out the checks on the travel of the dampers as suggested by Jonathon and hey presto found that there was insufficiet travel available. I have made up brackets to lenghten the dampers.
Jobs a good un.

Thanks again

Keith