Torsion bars and wheel travel

So if you had a coil sprung front end would you leave the standard coils in with a bar and winch hanging on the front ??

Are coil sprigs adjustable, not the last time I checked anyway?

What do they make coil spacers for then!

What i saying is if you but a bar and winch on the front of any vehicle the standard suspension will constantly bottom out ,give you a crap ride and pound the daylights out of your wheel bearings/shockers/tyres and everything else up the front.

You may be able to fit spacers to a coil spring vehicle but that does not change the spring rate. Winding a torsion bar does change the spring rate. Same as you can get 2 coil springs the same height when not fitted to a vehicle yet one will hold the vehicle higher than the other once fitted.

Point taken, But with coil spacers you do not put any more load onto the spring you simply put a spacer in, to raise it. When you wind a torsion bar you add load to the bar in the opposite direction of the weight of the 4WD making it want to unload thus pushing the ride height of the car upward. The same applies if lowering you are simply taking load off the bar.

A after market bar simply has more of this pre load built into it so it hold’s the height better if you have a lot of weight up front. Some factory bars are chit and will not hold hight if wound up, then they need to be replaced with heaver ones.

Yes but I was referring to ACDCs point about adding weight with bar and winch making the front bottom out. The extra stiffness negates that. Coil spacers only add height as you say.

I am sure some torsion bars won't take the punishment but Isuzu bars certainly do. Mine have been doing it for years. Some people talk of reindexing the torsion bars if they sag with the extra weight (on Isuzus don't know about others) but I have not needed to do that.

Also if your vehicle is a petrol you could get the torsion bars from a diesel model. The engine is most likely heavier. This is the case with Isuzus. I was quoted $80ea from a wrecker once.

Yes I think we had a communication’s mix up. , I was responding to ACDC reply as well, from my earlier follow-up you just beat me to it.

No worries.

Hi Jeff,

basically that's what I thought too (he's just trying hard to sell me some torsion bars that I probably don't need).
Having said that, I have an alloy bullbar and a long range fuel tank fitted, so are the original torsion bars enough? My guess would be yes, especially that several other shops I contacted told me to keep them and wind them up.
Is there any legal/insurance issue with fitting lower bump stops or modifying the originals? It certainly is worth considering.
Thanks for the info.
Sly.

Most ally bars are a replacment of the origional steel bumper (or plastic bumper on later models I spose) but wouldn't weigh much more if any at all than standard. The long range tank is at the rear so it would have a minimal impact on the front tortion bars. Nah, there's no legal issue that I'm aware of with trimming bump stops, even with my tortion bars pre loaded a small amount I still very rarley hit my trimmed bump stops with up travel as there is just not enough weight in the vehicle unless it's facing down a steep hill frontwards or somthing. I couldn't even get my wishbones level by jacking as close to the front wheel as possible when I was changing my CV boot the other week, I actually had to jack the opposite rear corner of the vehicle up to shift weight onto the front to push the fronnt suspension up. Heavy duty tortion bars I would imagine would make this even worse. But yeah it's not a major job to trim them, just need a vice, some silcone spray helps and a haxsaw. Just remeber that these are pretty tough rubber so trying to haxsaw them without a lubricant will heat the crap out of the haxsaw and make it very hard work, you can use CRC or WD40 etc but it becomes VERY messy as you end up with black crap all over you as the rubber sheds a black dust which stick to the CRC and get's all over you. Mine were a bit of a PITA to get to the bolts on, but I used an air rachet which made the job a 5 min one instead of a 30min one. Basically with an IFS vehicle that's about all you can do if you don't want to spend BIG $$$. So just compentsate that by making sure you have as much travel in your rear suspension and if you really want to go and do hard core stuff think about a front Diff Lock. I've been some pretty incredible places with my IFS Surf with stock suspension, I've only just upgraded the rear to give me some quite insain travel/articulation, I have no diff locks. So don't get too caught up in it. Mind you, I do love my new rear setup! :-)))) It travels SO much that the drive shaft hits the fuel tank stone guard at full drop and makes a tapping clucking noise as you traverse the large obsticle. It goes so far that I've had to resort to some industrial type cable ties to gold my 2" HD King springs in so they don't fall out! LOL

Good luck with it anyway, I'm sure you'll work it out. These forums have saved me SO MANY $$$ over the years while building up my rig, it just takes time to sort through some of the crap and differing opinions. And confidence to give some of this stuff a go yourself, I did my entire rear suspension setup myself, including firestone coil rites, modified 9909 Ranchos and springs and before I started reading forums I didn't even know which end of the screw driver to use! ;-)

Dont forget too that if you increase your wheel travel it may be too long for the travel of your standard shocks. Take the shocks out and measure their travel and while they're out measure the wheel travel.

Thanks Jeff, lots of good info there (as usual). You make me more confident now in keeping the original torsion bars and winding them up. I am looking at improving the rear suspension too and the front diff lock is one of the item on the whish list. But as you said it will take time (and money) to achieve all that. Unfortunately I am not feeling mechanically minded enough to do anything myself on the car. Until I can find someone knowledgeable enough and willing to help me out and show me how, I think I'll fork some money to some mechanics to do it. So the bump stops will probably be done that way.

Slyonnet, the bump stops are just a bit of rubber with a bolt comming out of them. Jack the front wheel up, take it off and you will see probally three funny little rubber things in there, you just remove one bolt and they come out... I reckon you should have a go! ;-)