Rear suspension mods

[2scoops]

Alright, everything is painted and I will be reassembling tonight. What I did:

Lowered rear diff--the drain plug sits about 1/4" from the bottom of frame

Reinforced front diff mount by overlaying 1 3/4" chromoly tube over stock tube & fully welding--this should be thick enough material to keep it from tearing away again. I may drill out holes & diff mount to fit 1/2" bolt.

Cut out upper mount tube and replaced with 1 1/2" chromoly tubing. Overlayed 1 3/4" tube & welded on stock frame then welded the new tube to it. Used 1/4" chromoly for the new mounting tabs and gusseted with triangulated chromoly tabs. Drilled mount holes & diff to accept 1/2" bolt.

Moved trailing arm shock mounts about 1 1/2" forward and about an 1 1/4" out. I used the original shock mount. I just cut the welds and chiseled the it off. The outer ear hangs about 1/4" off the side of the trailing arm. I added a tab underneath it for support and welded into the side of the trailing arm. The shock is now inline when looking from aft end of buggy.

Last I added a 1/4" chromoly tab on the inside trailing arm mount underneath. This is where a few have failed. I had 1000 ideas on how to beef this part up ranging from duck tape to NASA engineering, but I opted for the easiest & quickest solution which I also believe will hold forever.

One more thing...I took off the arms cleaned all of the bushings & bolts, lubed and re-torqued. All of the side play is GONE!!! I did not see any hole elongation. I do need to add some grease fitting however.

Trooper rear swingarm.bmp

[Guest Lenny]

The tab you showed in the pic should be on the bottom too I feel. I tend to go overboard when I fix something but I have few failures. Good job. Also be sure you put a good skid plate under the rear diff. I first put a 3/16" aluminum plate under it to protect it from rock hits. I then hit a rock quite hard and proceeded to punch a hex hole thru the aluminum plate with the oil drain plug. Fortunately it didn't hurt the diff. I then replaces it wirth a 3/8" thich plate that covered the entire rectangular area formed by the 4 frame tubes running around the lower side of the diff and oil pan. I then hit a rock hard again (not on purpose) and was able to see where the 3/8" plate still managed to hit the oil drain plug on the diff but no damage. Now I have another 1/2" aluminum plate about 6" wide by 8" long weldwed directly to the 3/8" plate under th diff. I also beveled the front or leading edge to create a ramp. I can hit anything I want and it now is strong enough for the worst hits without causing damage. Just ask Rocmoc, he knows I treat my Trooper really bad and way beyond what it was designed for.

Lenny

[2scoops]

I have been running a 1/4" aluminum skidplate in the rear. It is dented from bottoming out. By lifting the rear end, I am hoping to not bottom out as easily as I do now. I am also going to adjust my shock collars down so it gets into the primary spring quicker. I will definately be keeping an eye on everything. I will check everything if I find myself doing the "just bottomed out hard cringe".

[bigdan120]

Hey guys my suspension does not seem to like to flex....Has anyone messed with this? I am going to loosen the springs at the adjusters.....Front and rear...SEEMS STIFF AS HELL...As I compair it to Razors and others....

[2scoops]

The shocks are not as quality as RZR's & others. My first recommendation is to get rid of the stock tires and go with a good ATV tire. Something that recommends a low PSI (4-10lbs). I think the stock Trooper tires are around 30 psi. Of course if you run on the road alot this would not be a good tire for that.

There are tons of posts that get further into suspension on this forum. Just do some searching. There are some updrade bolt-on shocks out there (try silverbullet). If you really want the best set up you will have to do some moding/fabrication work.

[Kinarfi]

Hey guys my suspension does not seem to like to flex....Has anyone messed with this? I am going to loosen the springs at the adjusters.....Front and rear...SEEMS STIFF AS HELL...As I compair it to Razors and others....

blow off the nitrogen and back off on the spring preload if you don't want to spend the money on good stuff

[charlie]

Kinarfi blow off the nitrogen front and rear???? will that really help??

[Kinarfi]

Maybe, maybe not, it's just what I did and my front is still stiff, replaced the rears, that helped a lot, still looking for some fronts, kind of seems like Lenny put the nitrogen back some time ago though, so maybe it's not such a good idea, then again, maybe it is

[2scoops]

Took it for a test drive...can you say too soft!!! I have got to add a swaybar to this thing. It is gonna be great in the slow rocky stuff, but too much lean in turns. All the RZR's & Wildcats have swaybars at least in the rear. I need to find a good adjustable torsion bar swaybar set up. It is the only way to run a dual rate shock that is soft in the whoops but doesn't lean too much. I still have 13 inches of clearance under the rear end, so its not sagging in the rear. I will post what I find.

[Guest Lenny]

Mine will lean some too but I'm getting used to it. It never shows any sign of wanting to tip. I considered a sway bar too but one drawback is that it hinders all the wheels getting to the ground in the really un-even stuff like in rock crawling. There are alot of small sway bars out there, just google it. The nitrogen will make a bit of difference but not much its primarily there to prevent the shock oil from foaming. If you have say 150 psi of nitrogen and your shock shaft is 5/8" dia. then the nitrogen is adding about 47 pounds of extra push to the springs. Your right, too soft is nice in the football size rock stuff and makes a big difference in the basketball sized stuff.

Lenny

[2scoops]

Agreed, it will hinder my travel in rock crawling situations. I plan to add a quick disconnect to it. I figure nobody has tried it yet, so I could be the test dummy & give some results whether or not it is worth the investment. Mine leans, but has never felt tippy due to the wide stance. I have even had it on two wheels before at speed and never felt it was going to tip. This was witnessed by my buddy in his RZR S giving chase in the sand on Fins & Things.

[Guest Lenny]

The quick disconnect is a good idea. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

Lenny

[2scoops]

Took it for a test drive...can you say too soft!!! I have got to add a swaybar to this thing. It is gonna be great in the slow rocky stuff, but too much lean in turns. All the RZR's & Wildcats have swaybars at least in the rear. I need to find a good adjustable torsion bar swaybar set up. It is the only way to run a dual rate shock that is soft in the whoops but doesn't lean too much. I still have 13 inches of clearance under the rear end, so its not sagging in the rear. I will post what I find.

Well, the reason why I left for Moab so unprepared (no snap ring pliers!) was because I decided to fix the soft suspension. I fabbed new upper shock brackets which moved the upper mounts back about 1 1/4". This firmed up my suspension back to normal and left me with 13.5 inches of ground clearance in the rear. The front is at 14 inches. Lesson learned, I recommend to anyone trying to squeeze the most out of their suspension travel to remove the inner CV boots, clean them up, and cycle the suspension to make sure the inner CV bearing doesn't bottom out internally or against the outer retaining ring.

[2scoops]

Agreed, it will hinder my travel in rock crawling situations. I plan to add a quick disconnect to it. I figure nobody has tried it yet, so I could be the test dummy & give some results whether or not it is worth the investment. Mine leans, but has never felt tippy due to the wide stance. I have even had it on two wheels before at speed and never felt it was going to tip. This was witnessed by my buddy in his RZR S giving chase in the sand on Fins & Things.

I ordered sway bar arms from Shroeder. I am shopping for sway bars on Ebay. I am going to piece this thing together slowly so it works the first time. Also, if I bought everything at retail it would be about $350 to put together. By shopping around I should be able to put it together for around $200. It is an off road type set up (like a Currie Antirock) so it should allow for good articulation with out disconnecting. The big question is which diameter sway bar to go with. This all depends on weight of vehicle, suspension travel, and arm length. I am thinking a 1/2" diameter would be a good starting place.

[Guest Lenny]

I would think that 1/2" would be too small. I'm thinking more like 5/8" or 3/4" but that is just a gut feel without doing some research and running some numbers. My first thought is that stiffgness will go up by the square root of the diameter. Thus a 1/2" compared to 5/8" would be .5 squared or .25 and .625 squared or .39. Then take .39 and devide it by .25 and you get the 5/8" bar is 1.56 times stiffer then the 1/2" bar. This isn'rt for sure but I think I'm right. I would call a sway bar manufacture and discuss it with them based on the weight of the Trooper. Getting a bar with multiple holes in the ends would allow some adjustability. I will probably add a sway bar at some point . I will probably just buy some spring steel rod and make it from scratch. I'll make it as adjustable as possible. Interested in seeing what you come up with.

Lenny

[2scoops]

I would think that 1/2" would be too small. I'm thinking more like 5/8" or 3/4" but that is just a gut feel without doing some research and running some numbers. My first thought is that stiffgness will go up by the square root of the diameter. Thus a 1/2" compared to 5/8" would be .5 squared or .25 and .625 squared or .39. Then take .39 and devide it by .25 and you get the 5/8" bar is 1.56 times stiffer then the 1/2" bar. This isn'rt for sure but I think I'm right. I would call a sway bar manufacture and discuss it with them based on the weight of the Trooper. Getting a bar with multiple holes in the ends would allow some adjustability. I will probably add a sway bar at some point . I will probably just buy some spring steel rod and make it from scratch. I'll make it as adjustable as possible. Interested in seeing what you come up with.

Lenny

I was hoping you would chime in with recommendations. Yes, the sway bar arms I ordered are blanks so I can drill multiple holes. I thought about calling, but most sway bar applications are for ARCA and NASCAR applications. I am not sure how good of support they would have for off road. However, there are graphs I can look at to try and determine which one to go with. I would like to mount it on the lower radiator brackets and have the torsion bar run just in front of the radiator. The only thing in my way is the lower radiator line and the intake tubing. Both of which I can work around, which leaves me with one more question--will it clear the swing arms? If not, I will have to mount it behind the radiator somewhere.