The Stump wrote:Hi there,
I have also heard that the cast (forged?) shock-absorber top points on the rear are not designed to be load bearing, however I tend to disagree with that sentiment to some degree.
As the whole chassis is not so rigid in stock form anyway - if you are looking at coil-overs you would by matter of course also be looking at increasing rigidity in the whole chassis.
Therefore, you would likely be also looking at making use of the rear 3 bar brace type that is available from manufacturers such as CSP or Remmele. There would be no problems using coilovers if you also used such a design.
I agree, that would certainly be the way to go. I'm sure if Remmele's item is TUV approved and you bought a complete set-up including bracing then it would make engineering locally a hell of alot easier!
I agree, Mac. They are strong as f*&%!!!
I see where you're coming from with the pushrod idea, but aren't these more popular on openwheelers due to wind resistance issues? Probably overkill on a hardcore streetcar.
I was thinking about VWCOOL's point again and recalled that on the K&L front ends the bump stop's are mounted onto the sides of the beam and operate seperately from the shock absorbing system. Whereas, the BJ has a bump stop within the actual shock absorber, hence the total redesign of the shock tower to more of a pseudo strut tower design?
This should surely mean that the shock mounting points were designed with the intent of taking a load (that of the car crashing down beyond the travel of the leaves & shocks) far beyond what the suspension could handle to stop the chassis/body coming into contact with the road, well beyond what could be considered load bearing?
I'm in no way an engineer, nor pretend to know about suspension design, so tell me if I'm heading down the wrong track with this theory (constant loads vs shock loads, et...)
