The Road Ranger. 1997 SEMI

[Rick W]

If you make the shock geometry worse by moving the top pivot forward and lower, it'll take less force from the axle to cycle the suspension, that's my only cheap idea for the moment

Are you saying if I angle the top of the shock forward over the axle, it would still work, but it would give me my 8 inches of axle travel?

 

[Northidahotrailblazer]

what about running an air shock instead of coil shock? with an air shock you could on the fly adjust it to what you needed it to be.

 

[Rick W]

what about running an air shock instead of coil shock? with an air shock you could on the fly adjust it to what you needed it to be.

Again, the problem is not to hold anything up, but rather to keep the axle down when there is no load on it.

The 8 inches was picked out of the blue anyway with the concept that if I backed over a curb, the rear axle would raise up, and I wouldn’t lose traction on the drive axle. After thinking about it, I probably don’t need that much travel. If I ever get hung up, I could simply let the air out of the back axle tires. So 3-4” is probably plenty.

Right now I’m thinking of grabbing a shock I can just bolt in, and playing with it

 

[Snoranger]

Changing the angle of them won’t do as much as you think. A coil over mounted at a 30° angle is 86% effective, and if mounted at a 45° angle is 70° of it’s effective rate.
It looks like you’re already at about 30°, even changing that 45° won’t amount to much of a change in spring rate.
What diameter and length spring are you running. (If you know the spring rate, that would be great.) I have some old worn out spring from my time in the chassis shop that may work.

 

[Roert42]

I’m thinking that instead of a light spring, you would need a real heavy shock.
A shock will not support any weight unless bottomed out, just keep the axel from bouncing.

I would think a heavy shock like from a half ton or so would be heavy enough that even when you hit a pot hole the axel wouldn’t be able to bounce around.

 

[Rick W]

Changing the angle of them won’t do as much as you think. A coil over mounted at a 30° angle is 86% effective, and if mounted at a 45° angle is 70° of it’s effective rate.
It looks like you’re already at about 30°, even changing that 45° won’t amount to much of a change in spring rate.
What diameter and length spring are you running. (If you know the spring rate, that would be great.) I have some old worn out spring from my time in the chassis shop that may work.

Thank you, but again, that is academic. The only purpose of the spring in this location is to hold the axle down, not to hold the truck up. The axle is on a leafspring below, a pivot arm above, with shackles between the two, and the two are mounted at different points on the forward size (4-link that floats).

My goal is to eliminate the bounce of the axle when it is not loaded. There is no problem when it is carrying a load.

 

[Rick W]

I’m thinking that instead of a light spring, you would need a real heavy shock.
A shock will not support any weight unless bottomed out, just keep the axel from bouncing.

I would think a heavy shock like from a half ton or so would be heavy enough that even when you hit a pot hole the axel wouldn’t be able to bounce around.

That makes sense. When I hit a big bump, I don’t care if it bumps a little, but before I put these coil over, shocks on, it was bouncing all over the place. It pulled straight, but was constantly bouncing up and down.

 

[Roert42]

That makes sense. When I hit a big bump, I don’t care if it bumps a little, but before I put these coil over, shocks on, it was bouncing all over the place. It pulled straight, but was constantly bouncing up and down.

That’s exactly the purpose of a shock, to stop the car from bouncing around when going over a bump.

The springs are just there to hold the car up off the bottom of the suspension travel.

 

[sgtsandman]

I'm with Snoranger on an ATV, UTV, or motorcycle spring over shock.

 

[Snoranger]

I'm with Snoranger on an ATV, UTV, or motorcycle spring over shock.

You can even get them at a Rick approved price…

 

[Rick W]

You can even get them at a Rick approved price…

View attachment 96953

Hmmmm. Those are dirty. Will they clean them before shipping them?

 

[Rick W]

The current coil overs I got from the Toyota crossover are about 20 inches long. I went hunting all over the Internet for some inexpensive shocks that were of similar length.

Turns out coincidentally that the rear shocks on a lot of full size Ford products from the 80s are 21+ inches long, 12 compressed, with about 8 1/2 inches of travel. Those numbers are from memory, but that should put it in the range of what I’m looking for. Very close to what’s on my 87 and 88 town cars.

Rock auto had some closeout shocks for under 10 bucks each, so for a little over 20, and no effort, a pair will show up in my mailbox.

By the time they get here, that should give me enough time to take the trailer off the truck, turn it around, park it in the space where I’ll be working on it.

I’ll be working on the trailer left turn signal module which fried from a which fried from a pinched wire, and cleaning up the wires in general from the fiasco I had when trying to get it ready for the 40th.

I’ll be redoing the tongue. Before I drop the trailer, I’m going to find a flat level parking lot somewhere close, and just do a bunch of measurements. I think the height of the deck at the rear axles is about 2 inches higher than where the step up is to the upper deck. it should be the opposite, so that when weight is put on the trailer, it brings down the front so all is level. I’ll adjust for that when I redo the tongue, and make sure I have clearances all around so I can turn at a 90° angle without screwing up the fenders.

I also have a lot of deferred items on the Lincolns and the F250.

The 40th was a blast, and I was very satisfied with my health situation that I could actually enjoy most of it. I’m researching truck events in the Atlanta area or not too far away, I’ll keep you posted.

More to follow, thank you all for all the help

 

[Rick W]

Another question:

When I finally measured the truck when I got back, I’m 31’ 7-1/2” long. When I redo the tongue to clear the fenders properly, I can take about a foot out of that, but that would still leave me roughly 6 or 7 inches over 30’

The original plan was to be 30 feet because I vaguely remembered there was some truck restriction that started at 30 feet. But now I can’t find any reference to a limitation by length, all I can find is weight restrictions.

Does anyone know about this 30 foot restriction? Can anybody send me a reference?

 

[Ranger850]

Another question:

When I finally measured the truck when I got back, I’m 31’ 7-1/2” long. When I redo the tongue to clear the fenders properly, I can take about a foot out of that, but that would still leave me roughly 6 or 7 inches over 30’

The original plan was to be 30 feet because I vaguely remembered there was some truck restriction that started at 30 feet. But now I can’t find any reference to a limitation by length, all I can find is weight restrictions.

Does anyone know about this 30 foot restriction? Can anybody send me a reference?

Looks to be about 45 Ft. from my google search.


What is the maximum length of a single vehicle?


12.50 m

Single vehicle:

length 12.50 m , including a 4.65 m rear overhang. height up to 4.26 m. and weight as per the Highway Traffic Act.Mar 29, 2022
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[2011Supercab]

Does anyone know about this 30 foot restriction? Can anybody send me a reference?

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