geckocycles
Well-known member
To begin with being this is not a coily the panhard bar doesn't need to be so beef as a Spidertrax one. I talked to Tom there for some time about it and he told me to try a light weight version and sold me the jibs for my design.
I had some 7/8" x .083 cromo tubing and got some L&R bungs for the 3/8" cromo Aurora ends. I know that is pretty small but it has held up for many trips through out the year so far. This mod was done in Feb 09 and I wheel an average of 20 hrs week in dirt and this is my DD and put at least 20000 miles a year on it. First year I put almost 30000 miles on it.
I made and tacked the PS first. I later made a new one out of 1/4" plate instead of the upside down spring plate and bolted it on top of the spring plate.
Bump stops were fabbed later after I got the panhard dimensions all in order. I am using what I had in the shop at the time for this initial test. I took some 3/8" plate and bent it in an arc and welded it to the underside of the frame rail and welded on the factory bumps to that on top. Then determined how high the lower bump stop needed to be.
I used 3/16" plate for the tabs. Made paper templates and scribed them on to the plate. Cut on band saw one at a time.
Made some fish plates for the frame and welded them on. Did 1/2" hole puddle welds and then ground them all down after. When I cut my stock shock mounts off I left on the part that was welded to the frame to weld my towers onto. I butted my fish plate to that. This was later learned to be a mistake as the stock plate that I left is not very well attached and soon started to come off. No frame damage being there was no penetration to the frame from factory. I would recommend removing all factory mounts completely and make the fish plate as long as you need it to weld the towers too from the start.
I made the panhard bar the same length as the drag length and bolted it to the PS bracket.
I then tacked the DS bracket in place and swung the panhard bar scribing a line for center bolt holes to be drilled in multiple locations so I wouldn't have to adjust the length of the panhard bar as I raised or lowered it on the DS. I was going to change my pitman arm soon so I wanted more adjustment options. It was good in theory but some very minor length adjustment was still needed in the end. I tried. LOL. After I had that scribe on one of the plates I removed it from the frame and tacked the two DS tabs together and drilled my 3/8" holes through both plates and ground the edges down all around so the profile was the same on both plates. Drop them on the floor and the plates fall apart. This is how I make all my tabs if I have to.
Put 2 bolts in with the appropriate spacers in the middle and tack the assembly on the frame. Some minor grinding on one of the plates had to be done because of the angle of the bottom of the frame rail.
All looked good so I TIG welded it all on.
Notice how I made the bracket stick out to clear the spring plate. I can cut off what I don't need later after all mods are done.
Put bar on so it is parallel to the drag link.
Did the same bump stop as the PS.
All done. Flex it on my 31" ramp. It limits the flex some but very little being the axle is trying to pull over to the DS on PS droop and the springs and spring bushings start to bind up. Road manors are excellent and is worth the less than 2" loss in flex. It also limits your up travel being the rod will hit the frame at some point but again not too much. The OTT also limits up travel so you have to make sure you get those bump stops in so these rods don't hit the underside of the frame. I am more upset about the loss of up travel than the loss of droop.
Some frame notching is in the future to get that up travel back. As it is I have 3.5" of up and I was shooting for 6" and that is why I made the shock towers as I did.
C-Channel towers
I later removed these and fish plated under it. The stock tower plate started to pull off as I said earlier. No pict of that. THe little dogleg in the tower is not really needed and the next ones will just be straight. C-Channel works great.
I had some 7/8" x .083 cromo tubing and got some L&R bungs for the 3/8" cromo Aurora ends. I know that is pretty small but it has held up for many trips through out the year so far. This mod was done in Feb 09 and I wheel an average of 20 hrs week in dirt and this is my DD and put at least 20000 miles a year on it. First year I put almost 30000 miles on it.
I made and tacked the PS first. I later made a new one out of 1/4" plate instead of the upside down spring plate and bolted it on top of the spring plate.
Bump stops were fabbed later after I got the panhard dimensions all in order. I am using what I had in the shop at the time for this initial test. I took some 3/8" plate and bent it in an arc and welded it to the underside of the frame rail and welded on the factory bumps to that on top. Then determined how high the lower bump stop needed to be.
I used 3/16" plate for the tabs. Made paper templates and scribed them on to the plate. Cut on band saw one at a time.
Made some fish plates for the frame and welded them on. Did 1/2" hole puddle welds and then ground them all down after. When I cut my stock shock mounts off I left on the part that was welded to the frame to weld my towers onto. I butted my fish plate to that. This was later learned to be a mistake as the stock plate that I left is not very well attached and soon started to come off. No frame damage being there was no penetration to the frame from factory. I would recommend removing all factory mounts completely and make the fish plate as long as you need it to weld the towers too from the start.
I made the panhard bar the same length as the drag length and bolted it to the PS bracket.
I then tacked the DS bracket in place and swung the panhard bar scribing a line for center bolt holes to be drilled in multiple locations so I wouldn't have to adjust the length of the panhard bar as I raised or lowered it on the DS. I was going to change my pitman arm soon so I wanted more adjustment options. It was good in theory but some very minor length adjustment was still needed in the end. I tried. LOL. After I had that scribe on one of the plates I removed it from the frame and tacked the two DS tabs together and drilled my 3/8" holes through both plates and ground the edges down all around so the profile was the same on both plates. Drop them on the floor and the plates fall apart. This is how I make all my tabs if I have to.
Put 2 bolts in with the appropriate spacers in the middle and tack the assembly on the frame. Some minor grinding on one of the plates had to be done because of the angle of the bottom of the frame rail.
All looked good so I TIG welded it all on.
Notice how I made the bracket stick out to clear the spring plate. I can cut off what I don't need later after all mods are done.
Put bar on so it is parallel to the drag link.
Did the same bump stop as the PS.
All done. Flex it on my 31" ramp. It limits the flex some but very little being the axle is trying to pull over to the DS on PS droop and the springs and spring bushings start to bind up. Road manors are excellent and is worth the less than 2" loss in flex. It also limits your up travel being the rod will hit the frame at some point but again not too much. The OTT also limits up travel so you have to make sure you get those bump stops in so these rods don't hit the underside of the frame. I am more upset about the loss of up travel than the loss of droop.
Some frame notching is in the future to get that up travel back. As it is I have 3.5" of up and I was shooting for 6" and that is why I made the shock towers as I did.
C-Channel towers
I later removed these and fish plated under it. The stock tower plate started to pull off as I said earlier. No pict of that. THe little dogleg in the tower is not really needed and the next ones will just be straight. C-Channel works great.
