Rear Suspension Advice

I think you need to put heavier springs in, bellows should only be used for fine tuning in this situation and helpers are a partial solution and may hang low and get caught up off-road

You could have a look on Newtriton.net site for more specific info or speak to Ultimate suspension in Sydney as they have had a lot of Triton experience

Set up depends on what type of terrain you will be tackling.
My 80 series used to sag when loaded 3Ton. We do fairly heaving off roading so the suspension is set to suit that (2" OME Nitro with OME 400kg constant rear springs and offroad poly bushes all round) no need for air bags.
The set up is a compromise as set up is a bit on the hard side when travelling on the bitumen.

Places like ARB should ask you what sought of weight you carry when touring, what type of off road terrain you will be driving, then they calculate the suspension set up you require.

Most important, like anything to do with 4wd's, dont compromise on quality and reliability, its not worth the hassle of having failures in remote locations.

Also try to find a dedicated off road Triton web site, you will get the right info straight from those how have done it.

Hi,

I'm not sure if it's relevant to your situation or not, but I had helper springs on a work Ute with an alloy tray once. I put them on because the back used to sag quite badly with a moderate load on.

They worked great to eliminate that & they also certainly reduced body roll when cornering, but when traveling in it with no load on board the ride was so rough, you'd swear the Ute had square wheels!

G'day Daryl

A Triton from new doesn't have good shockers and they are usually non effective after just a few km from new.
That means the springs are then hammered more that they need to be and the spring gets fatigued.
Bellows will push up in the centre of the chassis where it really isn't designed to take a chassis bending force.
IronMAn, sounds impressive doesn't it, Load Plus only clamp bolt after the axle and rely on trying to bend the spring pack in order to lift a part of the leaves further to the rear and give some lift. Definitely not a fan of that.

Better spring packs suited to the ride, load use and height you want the vehicle to be at is the best way to go.

Just make sure the shockers are replaced.

I have recovered Tritons which have crashed because the all shocks on the vehicle were hardly working and that was at around 50,000km they were totally useless as shocks.
I have observed quite new Tritons bouncing along and it is obvious the shocks are not doing their job. Those vehicles are new shape and less than 20,000km

I've got a set if those ironman half size helper springs on my 2004 rodeo and I reckon they great
They fit to the upper rear leaf so don't hang lower they fit to the top spring
As said verrry happy them

First and most imporatnt thing to do, is load the vehicle up as it will travel, including occupants.....make sure its everything mind you.
AND put it over the local weigh bridge...make sure you get an axle split.

NOW..if one side is sagged more than the other...sounds like you are unevenly loaded.

you need to fix this.

As far as the actuall suspension uipgrade.
Yeh well airbags have been popular for a while...but not short on issues..lots of bent chassis and other issues.

as for helper springs.....AH well...what goes arround comes arround...helper springs where big in the 70's and 80s...they are what they have always been..a cheap nasty pacth for those who don't want to cough up for a full spring pack.

They have always had and always will have issues.....they may be selling some " new idea"...but nothing is new and has not been done before...still the same old same old.

As for the air bags...the last generation was the air adjustable shock absorber....yeh they where big in the 80's but seem to have disaperaed...there where some definite issues with them...same issues slight variation ...putting load on places not designed for it and a few others.

There is no substitute for keeping what you load under controll and buying a full properly designed spring pack when you need it.....in general the factory spring packs are not as good as they can be......there are some reasonably clever things the aftermarket manufacturers can do with the post bronze age leaf spring that don't come factory.

Remember iff you are not properly loaded and the weight is not well distributed a sagged rear end may be the least of your problems.

cheers

cheers

We have the 3 Stage Leaf Springs from Sax Suspension, have travelled 50,000 Ks now. Towing our camper across the GRR and Gulf and have also done about 12,000 towing our 2.5 tonne van. Truck loaded, unloaded, towing just feels the same, cost a bit more, but the old saying you get what you pay for.
PS do not have any shares in this company, may be I should.

Daryl

How much weight do you have on this car? Mitsubishi will have specified a maximum carrying capacity but that will be for a bare cab/chassis with a near empty fuel tank. Everything that is added after that comes of that capacity. That includes the driver and passenger, whatever body or tray is fitted, the fuel and any accessories. Whatever is left after that can be added to the body/tray and that is often not as much as you think, particularly if you have fitted things like bull bars, winches, dual wheel carriers, long range tanks etc..

Many people have the rear of a dual cab dragging on the ground because, while the car may be well under GVM, they have too much out the back and a few empty seats in the front but it is not all that common with a single cab. If yours is way down then either the original springs are past their use by date or you have overloaded it. In the interests of safety and reliability, the answer should be a bigger car or a trailer.

Think very carefully before fitting air bags. Your leaf springs are linear and compress in proportion to the load i.e. if you double the load you double the compression. They just keep on compressing at that rate until the chassis reaches the bump rubbers. They bring the chassis to a sudden stop because they are exponential springs, not linear springs. The more you compress them the harder they get and the more they resist further compression.

Air bags are also exponential and will become like a rock by the time they are about 60% compressed. This is usually well before the chassis would normally reach the stock bump rubbers. As they bring the chassis to a stop, whatever is behind them will want to keep falling. All of that falling material will generate forces that increase by the square of the distance they are behind the axle and will be well above the static weight. If you doubt this then place a brick on your bare foot then drop it about 300 mm onto your foot. You will understand real quickly. This rocks the chassis on the axle and tries to lift the front placing tremendous stress into the chassis at the top of the bags. This is why so many air bag equipped cars have suffered chassis damage.

Plenty of overloaded cars have damaged their chassis without air bags just by coming down repeatedly onto stock bump rubbers or heavier rate springs on rough roads but the bags make it much easier.

You may also run into brake problems with an overloaded sagging rear end. Your car may have a brake pressure proportioning valve that increases the pressure to the rear brakes as you load the rear and the springs come down. It will reduce the pressure when the car is lightly loaded and sitting up high in order to prevent rear wheel lockup. If you overload the rear then lift it up, you may end up with a light load pressure when you should have the maximum.

it is also quite possible that heavier rear springs will alter the front to rear weight transfer ratio and place more weight onto the outside rear wheel in corners. This could easily make the car prone to going into sudden oversteer (sliding the tail out) in corners, particular if you go into one a little too fast. If you are going to stiffen the rear springs then do exactly the same to the front as well.

These are just a few things to keep in mind when you start changing the design of cars.

Just get Ultimate to sort it out for you.
There isn't one un-happy person on New Triton.net that has their suspension fitted.

Which is more than you can say for nearly every other brand out there.

The standard suspension is absolute crap on the Triton and i'd steer well clear of air bags if you're doing anything off road and carrying anything heavy.

Hey Daryl,

It really depends on what sort of driving you do and what you are looking to achieve as to what the best next steps would be.

If you plan to maintain this gear as a constant load then I'd highly recommend upgrading your rear leaf packs to something more suited to a constant load (Ironman 4x4 also do a range of uprated leaf packs).

The other thing is if you are wishing to maintain the vehicle at a standard ride height. Ironman 4x4 do a range of suspension upgrades that provide a lift of up to 40mm on the Tritons. If you want to maintain a standard ride hight but still carry more load, you're welcome to have a chat to us and we'd happily make some recommendations as to the ideal setup for you.

If you don't plan to do a lot of 4x4ing, the load plus will do a perfectly fine job of levelling out your ride for a much lower cost than replacing your leaf packs, but if you plan to take your vehicle offroad I'd suggest upgrading the leaf packs as the load plus can start slipping with the vibrations and flexing that 4x4ing results in.

If you have any further questions, you are welcome to shoot us a PM or even leave a message on our Facebook page and I'd be happy to get into contact with you.

Regards,

Matt
Ironman 4x4