school me on mocking up coilovers

Okay i think I have this worked out but let me know if i have this flawed.

okay to mock up a coilover that is 16" long I would take two pieces of steel that can slide into each other. For the upper piece of steel I would drill two holes to put pins in. one for the ride height pin and another for what would be up travel or full bump which would say be 4". Now I cant remember but when you place your order you tell them how much up travel you want say 30/70 or 20/80 on a 16" coil over. So with 4" of up travel it would give me 12" of down travel right? So if I had say a 6" piece of 2x2 square stock With a 14" piece of 1x1 square that slide into it. This would pretty much show me how the coilover suspension would cycle through for mock up purposes.

Sorry if I lost some of you but its hard for me to get my thoughts on a computer screen sometimes.

order the length shock you want you have do your own valving they usually come with a standard valving you have to change shims internally . You will need the weight of the sprung jeep to get the correct coils

I'm no expert on this but I think i see where you are going with this. they don't care what up and down travel you are using. You just order theh coilover you want in the length you want and with the valving you want. you will need to know the angle you are going to mount them at to get the proper springs as well as the corner weights. Go to FOA shocks and use their calculator to help with coil selection. as far as mounting you just need to put the vehicle at ride height, mount the end to the axle and put the top mount wherever it needs to be to give you the up travel that you want. The 16" coilover measures 22.3 at full compression and 38.3" fully extended so your mounting points from hole to hole if you want 4" of up travel should be about 26.3". Keep in mind the coilover has some adjustability to it with the threaded body and that the vehicle will compress the springs once the weight is on it and effect the mounting height.

You may want to talk to Doug Bigelow or one of the Other guys. i think Randy said he knows an expert on shock valving that can give you a pretty good guess on what valving to order for compression and rebound valving. also need to know mounting width you need 1.25 or 1.5 i think. when are you planning to order? says orders take 2 weeks plus 1 week for delivery to east coast.

Yea i know about the valving and stuff, just trying to get the basic movement accomplished so i know were the tire will basically be traveling in order to begin trimming up the body and bend tube for the rear bumper. So those numbers you gave me bill were exactly what I was looking for. When i was going over things this morning in my head i totally forgot the 16" was just for the spring.

Bill to be honest the sooner the better because I have about 5 weeks before that windrock trip. But I don't want to rush you so I may just go a head and order two now right off the web site instead of waiting and having to order 4 through randy. I'll be ordering tires next week and will have to decide if i'm just going to have chris weld me up a set of bead locks or order a set through randy. Chris i'll give you a call monday to talk to you.

I should have my sprung weight this weekend. After playing around with it i realized my entire rear of the vehicle including axle and tires is less then 900# (this is all my dingo can pick up) so I should be able to measure my sprung weight with a high lift jack and a bathroom scale.

on the FOA calculator, for measurements D5 and D6, are they looking for the length of the lower control arm or is this this example for the desert racing type set up?


I'm thinking this would be closer to what i have by measuring d3 and d4 from the center of the axle.

the first pic is what you have unless you are doing IFS

I think as long as you measure both from the same start point you will be fine . from link bar pivot point to coil mount and from link bar mount to axle center line. if you put the coils right on the rear for example this measurement would be all most the same. But if you mount them back on the bars it would be different.

SPP YJ wrote:

the first pic is what you have unless you are doing IFS

I think as long as you measure both from the same start point you will be fine . from link bar pivot point to coil mount and from link bar mount to axle center line. if you put the coils right on the rear for example this measurement would be all most the same. But if you mount them back on the bars it would be different.

ditto. don't forget the shock angle.

okay did some measurements today for my rear sprung weight. With no weight on my rear clayton's they are 19". With body weight and a few heavy things in the back to simulate tools, rear winch bumper, and spare it compressed to 16 3/4. So i read the clayton's have a spring weight of 195# which would put me about 438.75 per corner. Thus putting me about 877.5# in the rear.

I think a 14 coilover may be sufficient after looking what my real rear travel was, roughly 4 up 8 or 9 down. i didn't have time to get the exact wheel travel, i'll try to do that tomorrow.

That's quite light, and very similar to what the back of my rig weighs. You'll be looking around 80/130 or so..

(That's an issue with the 2.5" shocks - hard to get light weight springs for them typically)

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=855744&highlight=mello+thread+barn

saw this the other day, great idea.