Front Warrior Beam... Torsion leaf removal for softer ride?

[Stingray250]

Hello everybody... I search the forums and couldn't find the answer I needed... so here's the question.

Mounted in a Mid Travel 72' Baja. New warrior king pin beam... 8" towers, KG 5530 Shocks, 21" limiting straps, poly end bushings and "latest rage" 6" extened leafs for the extended beam.

Here's the prob... I have 4 adjusters, one for each arm. With all the torsion leafs installed, I cannot for the life of me compress the suspension. The arms all rotate freely without the leafs installed so nothing is "binding". I have loosend all the adjusters and have even tried adding weight to the front end. I've used straps to try and compress the lower control arm to no avail. I recently found out that the leafs are the 30% firmer type and they are considerably thicker, alot thicker... like twice as thick per leaf than the OEM leafs are.

There are 5 of these new leafs per arm with a total of 20 leafs. Is it possible to remove lets say 3 from each of the top arms and 2 from the bottom arms then just tack weld a couple of stub pieces of leaf to each end of the remaining leaf so the grub screws can compress and hold them in place?

This "mod" would in fact cut my total leafs down from 20 to 10. Is there any "known" system of calculating the stiffness or softness by adding or removing leafs? Trial and error??

I really need to soften this ride up and I really don't want to resort to using thru rods.

Thanks...

[jsturtlebuggy]

Have you thought about getting some stock leaf stacks and using them.
It would be more progressive than cutting out some aftermarket ones you have.
Also the KYB 5530 shock is very stiff and can make moving the supension through its travel. They work well in the dirt at faster speed.
Setting up the way your supension works kind of depends on how much wieght you have is on the front of the car.
More wieght requires stiffer supension than something that has very little wieght.
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Joseph
Fair Oaks/Orangevale, CA
Elrod Motorsports
Motion Tire Motorsports
Having fun with Dune Buggies since 1970
Into Volkswagens since 1960

[bajaherbie]

shameless plug... i've got a set of stock leaves that have been cut for wider beams.....


have you driven it? it will soften a little with some miles on it.
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[madeyebiohazard]

I don't know if this helps but I had the same problem on my rail. I have a warrior 6" wider with 2 1/4 trailing arms, combo spindles and fox 2.0 12 inch travel shocks. with the same leaf springs and I had to put a cargo strap around the front end and attach it to my floor jack to compress the front suspension. I ended up takeing the leafs out and welding the ends together and then cutting the center sections out until I only had 2 full leafs in each section of the front beam. Totaling 4 complete leafs per side.
the front end is still stiff but if you stand on it and jump up and down it will flex.

[shred625]

But how good does it work?

I can jump on my front end and it doesn't move but works really great out in the desert......
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“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”
~ Jack Handey

[madeyebiohazard]

I should clarify, flex means. Move slightly I have 17" walker evans beadlocks with 265 70 17 M/T's When I drive hard and or jump I want it to be able to control the force of impact. The rail is pretty light in the front compared to a full body car. So you would have to look at your set up. if you moved the fuel cell to the rear and have a onpeice front and that sort of thing then you will probably be around the same as my rail. but if you have a full steel front with ful cell and so on. then you would have a softer ride with only two leafs.

[madeyebiohazard]

it works well for my set up at speed it absorbs well. I was just trying to give the OP a frame of referance to base a calculated decision on. suspension and suspension harmonics is a very deep subject. you really have to put alot of thought in to what you want for a ride type. off road/ on road/ or some where in the middle.

[77charger]

[OCCloser]

I have this same suspension set up. I removed 2 springs from the stock stacks on each side. Then welded the ends to make up the space on the arm hoping to soften it up. The suspension does well on the soft terrain. However, anything hardpack is way too rough of a ride. My opinion is that once you shorten the throw of the springs, you lose the correct spring rate. Add a decent set up shocks and you need 1,000lbs up front to make it work. I've never heard of anyone that has this set up in love with it. I think I will route to a coil-over set up. Sometimes you get what you pay for.....

[Gary Massin-Ball]

How bout just a thru rod on top and try the proper spring pack on the bottom.

Then you could try removing leaves if it was still too stiff. I run a stock width beam with just the lower springs.

Gary.
_________________
Warrior sand rail:
2276cc 82x94
Engle FK-41 with 1.25:1 street style rockers
40x35.5 stock cast single port heads
Single 40mm Kadron w/32vent
Equalizer 5lb pulley
Stock lifters
Stock aluminum pushrods
26mm aluminum oil pump full flow
*Poor mans rack and pinion up front*
-------------------------------------------
The Ugly Bug is on the road!

[cptcliffhanger]

[Conner]

I welded mine and cut two leaves off each bundle. Before I could no move the front with an anvil sitting on it and me jumping up and down, now it moves and should be perfect with the body on.

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1965 BAJA

[77charger]

wouldnt the heat that the welding produces soften the torsions?IMO there is a right way to do this and a cheap way to do so.Either go coil overs with softer springs or work on the shocks to get the right valving.

My buggy only has about 350 pounds over the front wheels and yes at very slow speeds it can be a little on the stiff side but even with hd torsions and longer arms you can see the suspension cycle pretty easily once moving and it can still bottom out on the rougher stuff so i cant imagine what less leafs will only be like.I am using 8.5 shocks right now.

I have learned from my last 2 builds that when i went the cheaper way to save money i ended up buying the better parts i should have bought from the start.
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Bugpack 4 seater rail
2275 built by me
Auto linea alm case,82 dpr crank wedgemated by DK machine
cb 5.4 h beams,12 pound DPR f/w,Slr xv294cam,cb straight cuts,hpmx 44s,40x35 heads ported by brothers machine

[cptcliffhanger]

obviously the best solution is CO! goes without saying.. lets assume you are going to run the torsions the way hitler intended (for cost reasons), i have fount that the stock spring rate is too much on a light sand rail (consider that the with relocated upper and lower shock mounts, and longer shocks the stock torsion preload actually holds the trailing arms up from full droop (you can get more droop than stock with said configuration) so you would need to run more than stock preload on your torsions to allow the arms to fully droop). this increases the ride hight on top of the increase that you get merely from being lighter..

the cut and welded torsions pictured above appear to have been gut well into the remaining leafs, not such a good way to cut them but there is no doubt that you will have less spring rate (at least up until the point where they break)..

in conclusion, if you are running something lighter than a sedan, you are going to want less spring rate.. I have found that removing the upper leaf pack entirely proved to be close. IMO it is still a bit too stiff but it will do just fine until it goes CO.

"or work on the shocks to get the right valving"

spring rate, preload, and valving are all very different things! you cannot make up for twice the amount of necessary spring rate with any amount of valving!

if you car feels too stiff at low speeds then softens up at high speeds, you are probably running too much spring rate, and too little valving..

trust me! it works pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7iKDio9wqg&feature=feedu

[Para4T5]

Guys, It seems as though you have beat this up already but I still have a
couple of questions for you all. Most of you sem to have done this on Bajas with a few exceptions. I have a 20 plus year old Invader rail that gets about 99% dirt usage. I have been running a stock kp front end all the while and now that I'm getting up in years I decided to try and soften things up a bit.. I picked up a 6" wider with 8" shock towers beam and have ordered 1 1/2" X 3/4" arms to use torsions. Even with a small winch and ammo boxes of tools etc I would venture tha my front end weighs around 300lbs. I have 2X3 arms in the back with torsions bars and some load carrier type shocks. I can bounce on the rar frame and it moves up and down 4-5 inches. I use all the travel it has and like the ride that it gives. I do notice that when I'm moving along the front seems to spring off the bumps rather than absorbing them which in turn pitches up the the rear as it comes off compression giving a nose first landing which springs back up giving a less than pleasant ride. A friend has A-arm coilover and it is soft by comparison to mine...you can sit on it and it compresses and mine is rock solid. I know it is hard to compare the two but I like to have the cadillac ride without spending thousands to get close to it.
It sounds like I should only run the torsions in the lower tube and thru bolt in the upper for the amount of weight I have. I will probably run kybs
on the front..

Any thoughts ???? Am I on the right track?

Thanks, Doug

[Gary Massin-Ball]

How bout just a thru rod on top and try the proper spring pack on the bottom.

Then you could try removing leaves if it was still too stiff. I run a stock width beam with just the lower springs.

I use Rancho 9000r adjustable shocks and have the front set at the softest setting. It works alot better than the full leaves ever did and now I will try removing leaves to try and soften it a little more.

Gary.
_________________
Warrior sand rail:
2276cc 82x94
Engle FK-41 with 1.25:1 street style rockers
40x35.5 stock cast single port heads
Single 40mm Kadron w/32vent
Equalizer 5lb pulley
Stock lifters
Stock aluminum pushrods
26mm aluminum oil pump full flow
*Poor mans rack and pinion up front*
-------------------------------------------
The Ugly Bug is on the road!

[jhill58]

For all those using a 6" wider beam and finding the front end too hard there is an easier way to solve the problem. Rather than cutting and welding spring plates (the way I used to do it too) just remove the spring plates from the top beam and replace them with a thru rod and nuts. You get half the rate which is perfect for lighter VW rails... My rail 85", weighs 700 LBS and wheelies like crazy, with a warrior 6+ beam with 8" towers this mod and Fox shocks it's almost perfect.

[Brandon626]

jhill58,

I agree, this is a very good way to do it, this is what I did on my sand rail for the longest time. I have the same beam as you.

just recently, i decide that i wanted the front to have a little more spring rate, so I replaced the top through rod with 3 out of 5 of the leaf springs. My sand rail is more of a "desert" rail (its heavier), but other people with a pure sand rail will really like the set up you describe.

[whitemike]

i dont see how spending 200-300$ on the off road spring pack and then using half of the product is beneficial imo. On my last baja, i used 2 oem spring packs with bilstein 7100's. Ride was pretty nice. I will be using the stock spring packs on my current baja build as well. the only hard part is finding extra stock leaves for sale.
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baja # 3 !

[Brandon626]

You don't see why its beneficial.... "the only hard part is finding extra stock leaves for sale."

Also, these leaf springs are already set up for the 6" wider beam so you don't have do do any measuring or drilling.