My 89' Bronco II... slightly modified...

[compleckz]

I especially like the 'fall away' coils, or whatever those are called. I was thinking about rigging some up for my D35, and after seeing yours in action I defiantly am!

im pretty sure ttb needs the coil attached since there isn't the same leveraging as on a solid axle.. someone smarter will likely chime in.

 

[BIIHawg]

Ya... I'll agree with compleckz on this one. I know you can get more flex out of TTB by using jeep coils but i don't know that you can make them fall away like jeeps. I mean I'm no expert either but I've never heard of anyone else doing it. You would have to have extended radius arms, the shaft for the coil to ride on. And I think since the two sides of the suspension are not attached, when the coil went to "fall away" the entire one side of the suspension would crash down fast instead of smoothly like a solid axle in which the two sides are attached and as one side goes down the other side cantelevers it thus making a smooth flex. But let me know how it works out if you do do it. It would be a cool new mod for all those TTB guys out there.

 

[Jspafford]

The radious arms will hold the TTB arm in place, but there is nothing to get the coil to go back in it's correct place. I wouldn't recommend it on a TTB suspension. It would fold itself into a V if you ever got into the right situation.

 

[Dishtowel]

I found someone on CarDomain who had done it is what got my brain-A-tickin'

I already built longer radius arms, back to just infront of the trans member.
The shock would act like a limiting strap to prevent the whole axle assembly from falling out from under the truck. And I could always rig a nylon/whatever limiting strap that would stop the axle once the top of the coil was threatening to leave the 'fall away coil retainer' (the tube part coming down from the coil bucket) I dont really know what the real name for those are, thats why all the " s.

This 'fall away retainer' would have to be approx 6" long and have to be *just* smaller than the inside of the coil when it meets the coil bucket, to insure the coil is seated in the correct place once your done flexing.

Thank you guys for you input, the more brains that get to think on an idea the better! I appreciate it. This may not be recommended, but I'm still interested. I will probably do it once I'm done with the 5.0L

 

[Dishtowel]

Found the dude on CarDomain with the fall away coils and TTB.
There is a pic of him and one front tire is way off the ground. The coil does not appear to be falling away.
I'm assuming either he has rigged some sort of limiting device, or the shock is limiting the droop, OR, TTB geometry just doesn't capitalize on the coils ability to fall away.
Once I get around to it, I still think I'm going to try it, I'll be sure to share once it's done/tested, successful or not.
Anywho, I feel like I'm sooooo.

I love the truck BIIHawg, what are the next 3 things on the 'to do' list?

 

[BIIHawg]

As for future plans... she needs bumpers badly and probably sliders at the same time. 4.0L swap and probably an axle upgrade to 31 spline in the 9 inch... other than that its pretty much where i want it to be...

 

[bullitt]

Awesome broncII, the LTL emblem up front really tops her off too.

 

[chico4554]

thats exactly like how i want to make my coil retainers. Did you take the whole bucket off to weld it on? Can you get all the way around the retainer with the weld, or did you just get most of it. Thanks.

 

[brendank]

Found the dude on CarDomain with the fall away coils and TTB.
There is a pic of him and one front tire is way off the ground. The coil does not appear to be falling away.
I'm assuming either he has rigged some sort of limiting device, or the shock is limiting the droop, OR, TTB geometry just doesn't capitalize on the coils ability to fall away.
Once I get around to it, I still think I'm going to try it, I'll be sure to share once it's done/tested, successful or not.
Anywho, I feel like I'm sooooo.

I love the truck BIIHawg, what are the next 3 things on the 'to do' list?

It's ineffective on a ttb because, as anyone whose taken the coils out of one knows, the axle will not fall away like a solid axle will. The radius arm bushings and the pivot bushings bind at a certain point, and the weight of the axle/tire doesn't overcome that.

IMO it's a bit of a gimmick anyways. It's useless flex, because at the point where the coil comes out of the bucket, there's nearly no weight on the tire. That results in nearly no traction. It's a "feel good" mod.

It's the spring that transfers the weight of the truck to the axle, and that weight = traction. no spring pressure = no weight = no traction.

 

[compleckz]

brendan you mean its useless on ttb, right? i dont think it would be useless on a solid axle, due to leveraging. one side stuffed up means the other side is being forced down since its......a solid axle.

 

[brendank]

brendan you mean its useless on ttb, right? i dont think it would be useless on a solid axle, due to leveraging. one side stuffed up means the other side is being forced down since its......a solid axle.

Yeah, completely useless on a ttb. Even on a solid axle rig, by the time you factor in the radius arm bind(in that system anyways), and the ratio of the length of the beam on each side of the compressed coil, I doubt you'd see a large amount of weight on the lower tire anyways.

It would be enough to make a difference in some situations, but it's not something that I would personally do.

 

[Loanranger]

If you read right below the pictures of the "dude" that did it on the TTB, it says "This is also a shot of the coil bucket that has the capability to fall away when and if ever needed. But since it’s currently set up with the TTB design, this rarely comes into play."

 

[Dishtowel]

It's the spring that transfers the weight of the truck to the axle, and that weight = traction. no spring pressure = no weight = no traction.

Good point, why didn't I clue into that. doh. You are exactly right with "no weight = no traction". Well that idea got scraped. That is the magic sharing ideas on the interweb. Thanks for the input guys!

 

[BIIHawg]

Wow... quite the converstaion going on. Anyways to the person who asked about the coil buckets. I did take them off to modify them which entailed grinding off those damn Ford rivets and pounding them out. But it was not too bad since there was lots of room to do the grinding.

As for the current topic. The whole no weight no traction doesn't matter when you have a locker and that tire with all the weight has plenty of traction. And this system helps with the whole not rolling over factor. Cause if the coil were attached to the bucket, it would pull down on the truck pulling the body over and thus shifting all that top heavy weight of the BII over. As you can see from the flex shot, the diff is dropped way away but the body is still somewhat level if not leaning the opposite direction.

 

[4x4junkie]

As for the current topic. The whole no weight no traction doesn't matter when you have a locker and that tire with all the weight has plenty of traction. And this system helps with the whole not rolling over factor. Cause if the coil were attached to the bucket, it would pull down on the truck pulling the body over and thus shifting all that top heavy weight of the BII over. As you can see from the flex shot, the diff is dropped way away but the body is still somewhat level if not leaning the opposite direction.

I bet if you turned the truck around and put the rear tire up on that rock, it'll be a quite different result.

I'd look into limbering up your rear suspension if having the coils captured causes the truck to become more unstable. Best is when you have close to 50/50% flex front/rear (flexes the same whether you put a front or rear tire up on the rock (or a ramp).
As it looks now, the front is doing 70% or more of the flexing.

Nice ride, BTW