how hard?

[carracarra13]

hellow folks its me again with yet another question how hard and what equiptment would I need to fit new springs shocks and polly bushes to our 3.9 rangi, thats the first question
The second is what else would I need when doing a 2" lift or am I better of staying standard hight with heavy duity springs all round as the truck is our every day transport and used for laining  just wanted to get the lpg tanks of the floor a bit,

[clbarclay]

Firstly if you do go for polyurethane bushes then I strongly recomend avoiding the cheaper ones. I've been there, done that and bought genuine rubber bushes to replace them.

I would say you shouldn't need a lift for laning, I did scrape the tow plate a few times when laning before fitting a lift, but but that was on some pretty rough lanes with fairly well sagged suspension. When it comes to protecting underslug tanks, there is no substitute for careful driving. If your not careful then a lift won't garanty the tanks survival.

If you do want to stiffen the suspension up a bit and give it some lift then consider using standard land rover heavy duty/police spec springs and use them with otherwise standard suspension. I had some aftermarket heavy duty lift springs on a RRC which worked OK, but I found them to be a little too stiff for my liking. The stiffer springs were nice for towing, but stuggled a little on some green lanes.

[carracarra13]

thanks m8

[jjsaul]

i've just bought for my rangie

poly kit (the deflex one, not britpart rubbish)
red/white rear springs
front springs
gas shocks (monroe)
steering damper (pro comp)
and the bushes that arent included in the poly kit.

so basically all the bits you're intending on doing...

i'll let you know how i get on and how long it takes, doing it on a 1992 rangie so should be pretty similar to yours.

[clbarclay]

poly kit (the deflex one, not britpart rubbish)

How dreadful must the britpart ones be to be rubbish in comparison :shock: I found the deflex ones to be bad enough. side by side a lot of the differances between a deflex and either a Polybush or Super Pro are obvious enough.

[squaddie_fox]

i would rather go with standard rubber bushes. a lot more flex for your money and wont rip off chassis mounts with some over-exuberant driving!

[Range Rover Blues]

Polybushes have advantages but now that Blue is mostly an off-roader I'm taking some of them back off.  The panhard rod does well on Poly as you can swap them every 2 years for about a tenner.  Doing the radius arms will help control body roll but when I put them on my LSE I got horrible steering kickback, they can be too stiff.

[clbarclay]

One of the problems I found with the deflex bushes was the crush tube, on bushes such as the panhard rod, was envariably too short. This ment it didn't clamp against the brakcet so in use the crush tube rotated around the bolt rather than the bush around the crush tube.
When I removed the panhard rob bushes (the were deflex), the bushes and the crush tube had stuck together. Rather ironically I ended up removing the crush tubes with a press.

[Range Rover Blues]

Not a problem I've had and I use Deflex on the panhard rod.  I must admit I think they stuck to the tube, but it's easy enough to free them with simple tools.

Did yours not torque up then?

[Reggieroo]

I was looking at getting some poly bushes as one of my next mods as my original bushes are shot.

I looked at the blue polybushes as there called the comfort kit, but also looked at the deflex as there half the price.
After reading this post I'm now in two minds what to do.

I use it on road a lot so don't want to lose anymore ride comfort but also use it off road as much as possible, mainly green lanes.

I've done most of the standard suspension upgrades so its seems poly bushes are the next obvious choice.

[clbarclay]

RRB
Im sure I could have got it out without the press, but it didn't want to come out easily with a hammer and having a press to hand, I wasn't in a mood to play mess about with it.
The cause of the problem would appear to be partly the shape of the bushes, the parts which stick out of the sides of the panhard rod are rather bulky. It would appear that the bolt was clamping as much on theses as it was the tube so it didn't grip the tube properly. Also the deflex crush tubes I've removed were all deformed to some extent where they touched against the bracket. I haven't had the need to remove a Polybush to compare, but I wounder if the grade of steel used as not strong enough either.


Reggieroo
I expect you can already guess with my choice would be of the 2 makes. But this may help explain it a little better.

The orange bushes are deflex, the blue one is a genuine Polybush comfort and the balck ones are standard rubber. All are unused. IIRC these are trailing arm to axle bushes.

Not the clearest of picts and not the worst of the deflex bushes either, but you can seen the surface finish on the Polybush is much better.


The panhard rod bushes were very much like these, not the excess bulk that will stick out of the bush on the deflex.


These were setup with the crush tube flush with the end of the bush on one side. The crush tube on the Polybush sticks out about 1mm, where as the deflex crush tube is shorter than the bush by 3mm.


This may also explain the deformed ends of the crushtubes on the deflex bushe I removed. the Polybush crush tube has a 2mm bigger OD.



And these are of the bushes for the top of the rear dampers.

Fitted with standard rubber bushes this is about 44mm wide


And using the deflex, its increased 58mm wide :lol: The cruch tube though for the deflex is 40mm wide.


At the end of the day its your money and your decision.

[Reggieroo]

clbarclay 

What about ride quality with the deflex, polybush comfort & standard, is there much difference on the road & off road between the three?

[clbarclay]

Job to say. I haven't had a direct comparison (ie before and after) on any of the RRC.

I reckon the best for smoothness and road holding was the 2.5VM fitted with polybush blue and HD lift springs. I recon the stiffer springs have as much to do with the road holding as anyhting else.

Again off road I don't have a definative before/after experiance, but the with the deflex I could have fitted shorter dampers without reducing articulation, where as know on rubber bushes it is well matched to the +5" dampers its fitted with. The radisu arm to axle bushes do look very squished on full articulation.