Hi Peeps

Does anyone know of any aftermarket shock units to raise the ride height of the 4x4.
Do any companys do a generic shock that fits
eg. Bilstein Rally Shocks etc.

Cheers guys
Nick

Shocks don't raise the hight, it's the springs do.

Anyway no there are no aftermarket parts to raise the car. The quickest way is to use 155/80 tyres and that raises it by about an inch and a half. There have been a few that have added spacers between the suspension and the bodywork which irons out the problem of raising the car by the suspension as apparently it kills the UJ's and bearings if you raise it that way.

Apart from larger tyres, the safest way to lift the front suspension is to put a 20mm spacer under the spring. You can also put a small spacer between the strut and the wing but if you over do it, the drive shafts bottom out in the gearbox and do lots of damage. 10mm is about the limit. You can't buy these spacers but if you can find someone with a lathe they are easy enough to make out of plastic.

Note that lifting the suspension increases the camber a lot so your front tyres will wear on the outside. Above 20mm lift the camber starts to get silly.

I suppose if you were to put those spacers under the engine/gearbox mounts prop carrier etc you could lift the car as high as you wanted bit like a mini bigfoot or littlefoot

The main limiting factors are the suspension mounts. As you lift the car the front wheels move inwards. If you tried turning it into a little foot the front wheels would meet in the middle :devil:

That and you'll loose some of the off road ability with the higher center of gravity...

You'll topple over, hehe!

Jim

Lesnewell said:

The main limiting factors are the suspension mounts. As you lift the car the front wheels move inwards. If you tried turning it into a little foot the front wheels would meet in the middle :devil:

Click to expand...

Meant to say on top of so you are raising the car and not the suspension if you know what I mean...

Crashtest33 said:

Hi Peeps

Does anyone know of any aftermarket shock units to raise the ride height of the 4x4.
Do any companys do a generic shock that fits
eg. Bilstein Rally Shocks etc.

Cheers guys
Nick

Click to expand...

My I enquire as to why you wish to do this ?

I'm just in the process of putting an extra leaf in the rear spring which should raise the back end a bit and give extra weight carrying capacity......

pandafan said:

My I enquire as to why you wish to do this ?

Click to expand...

I find they are a shade too low for serious offroading, they make up for it to some extent by the wheels being so close together compared to big 4x4s. But I have certainly graunched the underside of mine in the past. I have read about lots of folk who make skid plates to protect the under carriage but a little extra height wouldn't go a miss.
I have been thinking about a body lift as you describe Alan on my project car but its a little bit of that stage.
How do you go about fitting an extra leaf rfarey and how much will it lift it by?

An extra leaf wont lift the car up any further unless you somehow stuck it to the bottom which would be too much hasstle, instead you would need something like a jack up kit from the days of old that adds length onto the mounting arms or weld a box section onto where the mounts currently are and attach the springs to that. For the front you could add a simmilar mount under the current front shock mounts which would illeviate the wheels comming inwards but as said you would also have to drop the engine, box and mid prop section as well as possibly having to rework the gear control levers etc?

It was just to give a little extra ground clearance while doing serious off roading.
Thanks for all the input tho peeps (even the comedy ones )
Nick