I was worried for a long time that the big ass truss would end up being my suspension up-travel limit because it would hit the oil pan. Turns out, with all this other stuff touching or real close, there’s still 1.5” or so from the truss to the oil pan. With so many contact points I decided this was as good as it was gonna get and set the bump stops. There's a hair over 5” of up travel before the bump stops max out.
Speaking of bump stops… I welded a 4” strip of 1/4" steel on the back side of the frame (basically behind the coil spring) and then welded the can to it.
And then added this brace to it. The cans and mounting kit are from poly performance and are just a standard 2” bump can. The brace kit was nice but I only ended up using 1 piece of it (the curved piece welded to the can and the bottom of the frame in this pic).
So the truck has been to Pismo since all this madness. But before we can get to Pismo there’s a story to tell… I had a 39.5” IROK explode on the freeway just North of Salinas and after a frightening sideways skid across 2 lanes of traffic I wrestled it safely onto the side of the road. My buddy Rich helped me get the spare on and somehow agreed to get back in the truck. We turned around and headed back to home to put my 37” military tires on and had another tire blow the bead and bend the bead lock ring in 15 minutes from home. After some stupidity-based determination trying to fix it on the side of the road we did what we should’ve done in Salinas and call a tow truck. Once home, we put the 37’s on and headed on our way with no further incidences.
So that aside… how does it drive? Just OK. It wanders on the freeway. I think it needs more caster and I can’t seem to get the toe set to a point that feels good. I think it might be a matter of getting the caster dialed in and then trying to adjust toe though. I’ve spent a ton of time going up and down the freeway 1 exit at a time adjusting things at each off-ramp. I’m contemplating taking it to a alignment shop to get a proper reading of things since I’m tired of messing with it and it drives a little poopy on the freeway.
On the good side, I don’t think any of the issues are caused by suspension design or geometry. The 3 link seems to have good squat and dive characteristics under acceleration and braking respectively. Off-road impressions are minimal since I didn’t really play with it at Pismo.
There’s still a few things left to “officially” wrap up the 60 / 3 link install. It needs hydro assist badly. Turning into driveways is a challenge, there’s no way I’ll be able to steer on the rocks off-road. My front driveshaft binds at 4” or so of droop. With the 205 clocked and the kinda-big amount of lift I ended up with I’m gonna need a double cardan so I’ll have to bite the bullet on that.
Other short term projects are to fix the leaking 205 and hook up the parking brake. Order 2 new bead lock rings and put my “new” IROKs on the rims. Also need to finalize the triple stick shifters and address the hole in my floor resulting from said shifters. And then at some point I guess I’ll wheel the thing? That’s the point of all this right?