I have a lowered late bay with type 2 detective drop spindles with coilover shocks also from type 2 detectives..it is to soft.... and bottoms out and also rubs on the tubs.. ..anyone help with this...looking for better shocks really Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Have you got there adjustable beam too? I had their drop spindles and have just gone back to std spindles due to similar issues. What tyre size you running?
My coilovers have an adjustment on them which is a pair of lock nuts on a thread near the bottom that holds the bottom of the coil spring up. Jack the bus up and tap on the 'teeth' of one of the nuts with a centre punch or similar and hammer to unlock it then wind the nut up the shock and then lock it again. The coilovers are in parallel with a set of standard but cut and twist torsion bars which together make the suspension probably twice as hard as stock, just as well because there is only half the travel from rest to rub, before the springs have to push the nose of the bus up. You probably did not want drop spindles as well if you did not want rubbing.
I don't have a dropped beam...and my coilover shocks only have 3 settings... I might remove my anti roll bar ...dont know if that will help prevent the bounce.. Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Welcome to the large world of lowered bays. This is a black hole of problems . I have transport haus spindles 3 half inch drop adjusters in the beam and my tyres are 175-55-15s and I'm looking into some gaz shocks . But also looking in to wheels tubs cause i need to replace the wheel arches so i should get the space . Good luck on finding a way round this
So you lower the ass out off your bus , complain about bottoming out and running rubber band car tyres ... Why don't you Go back to T2D and ask them ? ...you can get solid bars that replace shocks so you can go low without the rub but obviously no suspension movement .... Crazy
my first port of call would be to go back to t2d and ask why they've sold you something that doesnt work. you dont say what tyres you have - if you are lower then stock sizes wont work, but remember if you go for lower profile they need to be load rated appropriately for the weight of the bus don't remove your ARB - it won't make a difference to the "bouncy" but taking it off will make your bus handle worse. you also don't say what wheels you're running - the dropped spindles increase your track - if you add some wheels with a cr@p offset they can also add to the width at the front which moves the tyre closer to the hump in the arch and closer to the dogleg which increases your chance of rubbing.
I'm running low profile tyres with 5×15 rims with 175/60/15 front ....i have talk to t2 and they recommend I change from the coilovers to bilstine shocks they now sell ... and I first purchased about 3 years ago... they just are to soft and require something more thermer but not harsh Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
As has been said there are a lot of downsides to lowering! With a lowered bus you have less downward travel of the bus before you reach a physical limit, which is usually; A/ tyre hits bodywork B/ shock compresses completely C/ bumpstops (which are rubber and designed to prevent A or B) are meeting. Lowered buses usually have their bump stops cut off to achieve a lowered ride height. Since a lowered bus has less travel before A, B or C occurs, it usually needs a stiffer spring and often a stiffer shock to resist travel reaching this point. If your bump stops have been cut off then there's nothing to limit travel and A or B happens. If the bump stops are still there then you'll be hitting them as your ride height brings them much closer together. Coilovers add spring strength to help limit travel, and usually have stiffer damping or adjustable damping to reduce movement in travel. But there should still be something to replace the bump stops since we don't want to reach A or B (a standard shock will hit a hard limit when fully compressed) happening. Some coilovers have a built in bump stop to address this. I'll assume here that your bump stops have been cut off so there's nothing stopping the travel before the wheels hit the wheel arches. (This is where wheel/tyre size affects the situation). If when your bus bottoms out you get a hard banging you may also be reaching the compressed limit of the existing shock. So generally you'd want a coilover shock with a bump stop built in of a length where, when fully compressed the bump stop is the first thing to hit before The wheels and bodywork collide. With less travel available this is quite likely to happen on the front end. Here's a few pointers to give you some idea of required shock length: With the bus on level ground, measure the distance between the top and bottom shock mount eyes, centre to centre. That gives you a reference point to start from for shock length. Then measure the gap between the top of the tyre and the lowest point above the tyre on the underside of the wheel arch, assuming this is where your rubbing is occurring (you should see evidence of this on the wheel arch). This gives you an idea of maximum downward travel limit from rest - or minimum compressed shock length. Let's say for example your standing eye-eye is 240mm and there's 100mm between the tyre and wheel arch tub. That gives you a maximum compressed travel of 90mm with a small margin before tyre hits body. I'd suggest a shock with something like a minimum eye-eye length of 150mm (with a 20mm bump stop within that to stop a hard bottom-out) and a max eye-eye of around 280mm or so since your ride height should sit roughly 1/3 into the travel. These are all just suggestions based on my own experience with my bus. Once you know your eye-eye rest height and how much more travel there is before bottoming out then a good suspension supplier such as Gaz or Dampertech should be able to advise on coilovers of the correct length, damping and with the right helper spring rate. If your bus is very low the problem may be more complex to solve as you really need something like 3 inches minimum vehicle downward (compressed) travel to remain driveable, so if there's less than that between tyre and bodywork then you might need modified bodywork or smaller diameter tyres. I hope all this makes sense. Start with Type 2 since they sold you what you have. The above might help work out what you need. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Just hope it makes sense! I lowered mine to get the height below 2m for garage and car park access. When my front beam was fitted the bump stops weren't cut out so I had stuff all travel. When they cut them out I had horrendous crashing as the standard shocks bottomed out as well as tyre rub. I adjusted the height a little, measured lots and fitted Gaz coilovers. It's so much better, but every now and then it'll still bottom out over really really bad bumps, but at least the built in bump stops help. Watch out for the anti roll bar hitting humps in the middle of the road if you've gone really low too. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
3-4 inches. Those figure aren't accurate but just examples for calculation. Can't find my original calculations! From memory I think my shocks may have been something like 230-340mm. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Found my specs. The eye-eye resting on my bus front was 315mm. I bought Gaz 140/95B12 shocks (14") with a 1" bumpstop and a helper spring of 120lb. The shocks have an open length of 355 and closed of 240 plus bump stop = 265mm (14"-9"). Adding preload to the springs gives a tad more height adjustment. I also fitted 185/75/14 van tyres instead of 185/80/14s to drop a little more and give a little extra wheel arch clearance. On the rear I fitted air adjustable shocks to slightly stiffen and give some height adjustment as it was dropped on the splines. It's never going to ride like stock but I'm happy with the compromise and don't mind a firmer ride. I even took it on the IOW ferry with a max height of 2m. That was a leap of faith as I'd roughly measured it at 1.97! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
