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Ideas for trailing arm hubs please

 
 
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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
Odometer: 876
Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 4:55 pm    Post subject: Ideas for trailing arm hubs please Reply with quote

Hi guys.
I'm building an Austin Gipsy up and looking to improve the existing suspension setup.
It uses four trailing arms exactly like indespension units used on trailers.





I binned the old diffs which were big heavy things and stuck in some Nissan R200 limited slip ones.



Kept the Austin gearbox which allows me to disengage rear wheel drive and put in a 4.4L Leyland P76 V8. I want to keep the old essence of it all and accept it will never be an all conquering 4x4. I'm still using the old Austin hubs with 10" drum brakes. I know putting live axles under it would be the easiest way to go about it or some IFS from a hilux or L200 or Navara could be done but I'd lose the completely flat bottom it has with 15" of ground clearence right the way through on 7.50 x 16.
[/img]http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb241/jamie_grieve/austin%20gipsy/P8220044.jpg[img]

I've kind of run out of ideas. I thought about trying inboard brakes from maybe an Alfa 175. It needs to use drive shafts which can change in length more than the plunge available on any CV joint. I suppose I'm looking for a hub which can mount to a flat face and be driven and braked.

Your thoughts please.
Regards,
Jamie.[/img]
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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
Odometer: 876
Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aw c'mon, 100 views and not one idea? Crying or Very sad
I can understand though. I've had the damned thing for five years and still not worked it out Embarassed
Maybe I should elaborate a bit. In the original vehicle the front diff was offset to clear the sump but this gave a very short front right halfshaft. I chopped a lump out of the sump on the V8 and positioned the diff centrally to get rid of some quite impressive torque steer when running in front wheel drive and get more wheel travel with a longer shaft.
The new Nissan diff was also fitted higher up and was narrower compared to the original which allowed some quite long shafts to be used. There should be around 12" of travel available on the front but when cross axled it's lucky to see 6" of travel.

The spring rates of the rubber springs are quite strange having a very low sping rate when not compressed and very high when they are compressed. Maybe like a cone shaped assymetrical coil spring or something. Anyway, the point is the suspension's a bit crap. I also made the rear trailing arms longer in a vain attempt at more travel but was equally unsuccessful in achieving anything worthwhile.

Another cool thing with these trailing arms is the amazing changes in castor angle available and that when going round corners the wheels lean at the same angle as the vehicle unlike every other suspension.

The nissan diffs which are LSD turned out to be viscous which has no place in any offroad vehicle which leaves me with something which has great approach/departure angles, great ground clearance, looks different but is of no use offroad 'cos it gets crossaxled so easily. It took a lot of work to fit the chassis up to suit the nissan diffs. The clutch type LSD is available so might go there. If the diffs lock up I can handle no wheel travel but the steering and brakes want some serious atention.

I was thinking of an electric steering column like the Corsa has. Anyone used one? and as for the hubs and brakes I've no idea. One of the best things about the Austin Gipsy with independent suspension was that you never knew just when the wheel was going to fall off. It's got no stub axles. The hub and wheel assy are bolted solid to the drum and the whole lot hangs off a silly little halfshaft which provides both the drive and the load carrying capacity.

Heeelp Exclamation
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Terranosaurus
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Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Odometer: 949
Location: Bishop Auckland County Durham



PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not noticed this thread before but here goes.

R200 diffs, as you say plate diffs are available, from both Nissan and aftermarket, but so are airlockers. However have you got a pair of front and rear diffs or are they both the same, you might find the one at the wrong end to be short lived. Nissan did cwp sets for both drive directions, though they are a Fuji/Subaru diff actually.

With scooby in mind you could use R180s or even R160s (narower still so longer shafts) which are fitted to various Imprezas and available with every LSD type under the sun. Front R180s are in Nissan Terrano/Ford Maverick etc.

Can you not do away with the rubber springing and the lever arm shocks and go to coilovers, surely this would give you plenty more travel.

For hubs, keeping it Nissan, it might be possible to use Terrano front hubs all around. Can't really see the setup to work out if you could attach them from the photos. Available with auto free wheeling hubs (for the rear) or solid drive flanges on latter model (for front) and of course aftermarket manual fwh. Big twin pot sliding calipers on vents.
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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
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Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Terranosaurus,
thanks for the reply. You've guessed correctly that I am using one diff backwards. I'm going to stick with the R200's because the mounts are different to the scooby. I don't know if my driving members with the viscous coupling are the same as the plate type LSD? It took a while making the diffs take the GKN type flanges.
I've given you a cross section of the hub assembly. '15' is the swing arm which in my case is solid not the hollow section as depicted here.



Losing the rubber springs would also mean losing the swing arms which at this stage I'd prefer to keep. What I'm looking for is anything which can be driven, braked and bolted to a flat face. The front end is more of a drama than the back. I thought of cutting just behind the chrome ball on a landrover or Toyota axle, using the open end on a Dana type but none of these is designed to resist the thrust from the sliding joint on the shaft.
The front end is identical to this but only has king pins half way down.



Anything with struts and wishbones is out because I would need kingpins. The other problem with cutting the end of a live axle or simply bolting on the ends of a front axle is I would need an extra joint inboard of the trailing arm making for super short shafts with unworkable angles.

Longterm, having coilovers mounted along the chassis rails working on a bellcrank on the trailing arms has been rattling around in my head for a while. Putting the mounting on a hydraulic cylinder would allow me to change ride height without changing the spring rate.

Hope the pictures are of some use.
Cheers,
Jamie.
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Terranosaurus
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Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Odometer: 949
Location: Bishop Auckland County Durham



PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It won't help you at the front but Peugout did a 4x4 version of the 405 which has swing arm rear suspension on torsion bars - perhaps you could transfere the lot across, though not sure on the amount of travel in them, suspect quite limited, the hubs might work though, rear discs too IIRC.

BTW - terrano not on struts, twin wishbone like many medium size jap front ends, way I see it you'd just need a top and bottom balljoint mount.

Here a look at Nissan workshop manual HERE for diagrams etc
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d86
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Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Odometer: 635
Location: bath,somerset,u.k.



PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

hi jamie,
i have been looking into elec-colom,s and the easiest to wire seems to be the mgf/tf one as it comes with its own ecu,so efectivlly making it a 4 wire system,(pos-neg 12v---the other 2 are to a speed sensor).
the speed sensor is the problem area as on th mg it runs from the speedo drive in the gearbox,
i hhav been looking into other makes such as fiat panda but i dont think they are tourqy enought,(but i do like the idea of the on dash girly button
to lighten everything up)

hope this is of help.
tony Very Happy

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if at first you dont succed,give up and get somone else to do it.!!
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d86
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Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Odometer: 635
Location: bath,somerset,u.k.



PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thought this may make good reading.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Corsa-Rally-Kit-Escort-El...ksid=p3286.c0.m14


tony Very Happy

it gets over the probs i mention above

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if at first you dont succed,give up and get somone else to do it.!!
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Terranosaurus
Articulating


Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Odometer: 949
Location: Bishop Auckland County Durham



PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure the electric kits will be up to 4x4 use, I've eard of tem getting burnt out with rally use.
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d86
Articulating


Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Odometer: 635
Location: bath,somerset,u.k.



PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

that is partly my concern as well,ok for mk1 escorts not to special off road with the constant turning!!!!!!

the other concern was would one be tourque enought for the forces on the tyres in off road situations?????

at the end of the day there really is no subitute for hydrilic based steering.

tony Very Happy

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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
Odometer: 876
Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

D86, thanks, that link is perfect and exactly what I had in mind. Cheers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tHyqkgx8_k

I came accross it from this link here which is the corsa steering fitted to a Volvo 6x6. It's main attraction to me is if it fails then the steering reverts to normal.
I've got one of those things in the video so I'll do it on that first before the Gipsy.

I don't think that hydraulic steering has much place on a road vehicle. Danfoss type valving simply can't react quickly enough in an emergency situation. Try turning the steering quickly and feel the resistance. I'm very familiar with the pentronic hydraulic system as used with commercial 4 and 6 wheel steering. It's no different to most but has potentiometers mounted to measure wheel turn angles and electronicaly operates a valve to the steer cylinders which means the steering wheel is just connected to a high pressure control circuit. It reacts better than the older systems and can maintain a straight ahead position for the rear wheels for example at the toch of a switch. The componentry is quite small and would have no problems being fitted to a 4x4. Might be worth a look for another application.

Terranosaurus, that's great information on the 405. I just need to find out how it works.
Thanks a lot guys.
Jamie.
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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
Odometer: 876
Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

BUMP!!

It's been a long while since I visited the old Gipsy but I'm gonna go on leave for a couple of weeks soon to N.Z and catch up.
I have still got no idea at all what to do with this thing. It's kanda funky in it's own way because there's just nothing else out there like it. That's also the problem. It just doesn't work.

It has almost imperceptible wheel travel, about 6" on the front and about 8" on the back in a cross axle situation and a bit more if you do a jump.
The rubber springs are now more than 50 years old and been in a swamp for a fair while before I got it.

Some back ground:
It all started when I saw it whilst fixing an excavator which had broken down digging a hole to bury a bunch of old farm scrap. I was hitch hiking in New Zealand at the time and had just landed a part time job at a garage. The Blokes thought it would be funny to drag it out the swamp and present it to me as an alternative to my thumb.
I was at a loose end and sleeping in my tent behind the garage doing my best impersonation of a guard dog which maybe prompted me to look at it....and, I had to pee on something.
It turned out to be a 1960 series two Austin Gipsy which has striking similarities to the landrover series two which came out well after. It had a 2.2 litre BMC petrol engine which took very little persuasion to go even though it was seized solid when I got it. I just poured old engine oil and diesel down the plug holes and after a week it moved under its own steam. I couldn't really abandon it then.
The guys in the garage were really good to me afterwards and let me use the place at night.

A few months later it had a P76 V8 in it with a Holley carb, huge valve overlap and 10:1 compression. It got Nissan diffs, new brake drums and old cylinders re lined with stainless steel. With just the (newly galvanised) bulkhead and seat base it weighed 1170kg and did a 1/4 mile in 16 and a bit secs at 84mph. With the rest of the gubbins on it still did a respectable 19 secs. I found this out by complete accident but some hot rod guys I knew had all the gear and wanted to play with something stupid one day so it seemed like a great idea at the time.

Pros:
It was free.
It has a direct drive PTO unit for it to drive a mega winch.
It's really far away so I don't have to look at it every day.
The chassis has zero rust.

Cons:
It doesn't steer stop or turn very well.
The wheels fall off.
It's really far away so I can't even remember what it looks like!

Any ideas....?
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thinfourth
Just got MTs


Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For the front could you not just take the entire swivel assembly from the end of a landrover axle?
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jamie_grieve
Articulating


Joined: 19 Aug 2009
Odometer: 876
Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
For the front could you not just take the entire swivel assembly from the end of a landrover axle?


Nah, not really. As I said earlier in the post I'd need an extra joint inboard of the one for the steering. This would do two things, it would make the shaft very short and increase the angle the joints were at and secondly if it were a UJ it would introduce harmonics into it all and help shake the whole thing apart.
If you look at the photo of the front trailing arm you'll see where the paint's been rubbed off the drive shaft showing how much it actually moves.
The other photo of the front shows the bump stop arrangement. There's actually more than 13" of travel available but it's hard to get the wheel to go up that high without hitting something really hard.

I wish I had a Simca Sumb here to look at. Some bolt on portal boxes with steering and brakes might work?
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thinfourth
Just got MTs


Joined: 24 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 7:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lets step back

What are you trying to achieve?

Better hubs or better brakes?

As it is probably easier to engineer better brakes then it is to engineer new hubs to get better brakes
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jamie_grieve
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Joined: 19 Aug 2009
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Location: South Scotland



PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2010 3:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Better hubs and better brakes!!
I don't think I'm being too greedy Very Happy
The hub design is fundamentally flawed on the gipsy by having the driven axle pass through a stationary hub and a drive flange much like the landrover's but bigger and is held on by a single nut and parallell splines exactly like a series landy. You can make it out in the drawings.
No matter how tight the nut there will always be movement between the drive flange and the axle. Too tight, threads break, wheel falls off. Too loose, split pin breaks, wheel falls off. A tapered spline might have been a better solution to eliminate the movement.
Disc brakes could never work because by the time you add all the slack up the first pedal stroke would go to the floor. Nearly everything I have is new or reconditioned, not old and worn out. It was a problem back in 1959 which is why they changed to conventional axles in '61.
Any ideas gratefully received. Smile


Last edited by jamie_grieve on Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ali-lee
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1990 Toyota Hilux

PostPosted: Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you were wondering where to use the renault axles....... Laughing
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Bosleya
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Joined: 28 Jun 2017
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:53 am    Post subject: Austin Gipsy Flexitor suspension Reply with quote

My advice as a regular Gipsy user, is to find a chassis of a SE Gipsy MkIV and convery your vehicle to semi elliptic springing using parabolic LR. Springs. The SE Gipsy was far superior to Flexitor.
Better handling, accurate steering, a turning circle sharper than a LR, and huge axle articulation, again beats a LR - 19 inches rise and fall per wheel. That makes 38 inches in theory. You never SE a SE Gipsy with a wheel dangling in mid air. Note latest Discovery can only manage 20 inches axle articulation in total
Alan

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Bosleya
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:28 pm    Post subject: Austin Gipsy mods Reply with quote

Let me tell you about mods to mine. It is a 1966 LWBsemi elliptic sprung hardtop or more accurately a GP carrier (see sales literature on net).
Had various BMC diesels, 2.2 but was very worn, 2.5 very good and low speed torque ++ but cracked head. Then was offered a nearly new Daihatsu TDI. Very like the BMC 2.5 and even gutsiest.
Made mating plate to std Gipsy gearbox. It is such a good box consider no other. Then power steering box from BMW 5 series. Turned 90 degrees, made mounting plate and straightened drop arm, mounted in same place as Gipsy one. But tight but fits in perfect. Used part column BMW and part defender top bit. Use RR steering wheel.
Then as LWB has 11 brakes almost 3 inch wide shoes, that is the brake solution. Split the circuits front and rear and dual master cyl from an old type Escort.
Took Series 3 pedal box, modified pedal and have just got room for a directly mounted servo, with master cyl mounted directly onto that (needed spacer). The brakes are good, not quite disc stadard but miles better than original SWB non servo ones. Do this for a SWB, THE LWB axles are a direct exchange.
Then have parabolic springs. Much better ride and converted to all telescopic dampers.

All body work is my own work except for GRP wing outers and rear wheel arch fairs.
Yes it goes well, very well. More manoeuvrable than defender long or SWB. Ride not much different until on uneven ground when it is definitely better, less crashing and jarring. About 25 mpg. Oh I forgot used Daihatsu intercooler, with modified piping.
Remember it was the Gipsy that scaled the 45 degree slabs of the Avon gorge, did a three point turn to come down nose first and scared the hell out of the RAC observer. Apparently the Series 2 LR trying to do the same would not do the three point turn and had safety wires on I am told.
Best to get a SWB SE chassis, should be sound, have it sandblasted and any repairs done, then get it galvanised, mine is. Gipsy chassis are getting hard to find.
One day I will explain my axle mods.

A.

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