Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

For those still following this thread, Sunday this "happened"....
Old Spring perches cleaned off and ready for new..

Pumpkin side poses its usual problem in that it's cast and the perch needs to be attached to the casting itself, unless I can "pull" the one side of the perch wide enough to be attached to the axle tube.

Now looking for steel to build perches. My collection of scraps is getting thin. I have a bit of angle iron and two pieces of 5mm sheet that seems to be my best option at the moment.

Next weekend I may get a chance to carry on with some work on the perches, I have a gig Saturday afternoon and evening for Adam Tas at one of the local pubs, so not sure how Sunday will turn out, but we will see.

A little update....

I got about four hours in on Sunday and built my first spring perch. I tackled the pumpkin side because of the casting of the casing.

Built it so that it has good support on the tube, and "hangs" over the casting where it will be welded as well.

This is where I am at...

Looks good bud..... just don't warp that axle when welding!!

Locklaw on the community forum just warned me not to weld both the tube and the casting together. I presume there is movement between the two that will cause fatigue on my welds. The casting would probably by the first one to break off.

I am going to check out the possibility of just tying back to the original spring perch under the casting with a second set of U bolts to trap the diff between the two perches. I just need to make sure I am not getting in the way of my sway bar again. It runs right up against the diff tube and my last perch setup was in the way.

The bracket I have now built is 120 wide. It sits with 60mm on the tube, and the remaining 60mm on the casting. It's built from 6mmx50x50 angle iron welded together to create a channel that fits over the tube along it's length. The perch plate, 6mmx120mmx60mm, is then mounted across the bracket to run from back to front of the car to take the leaf spring.

My original thought was that I would have enough strength just on the tube to do the job, but with a few dissimilar metal rods in my arsenal, I thought I would just weld everything together. I don't have enough faith in my welding skills, and the casting, to just weld the perch to the casting

Would like to hear from the engineers if this is a idea that will bite me down the road, or not.

David will try to take photos of my Safari tonite and see how mine was done

Thanks Wilkie, that would be cool.

I had been through a few options the first time round. Some of the options were still welded to the diff when I took to taking it all apart now. I wanted it cleaned up, not only to look better, but to remove the extra steel and weight that goes with it. One day it will all change again when I venture to coils and trailing arms

Reenen on the Community forum just posted pics of his setup. He did with bolts, what I previously welded together.

He clamped a new plate on the top of the diff, from the bottom perch. That way he just needed to keep the top and bottom perch exactly parallel and the castor stays unchanged.

I still feel his bolts on the front of the diff are going to be in the way of the swaybar. I had that problem when I bridged the bottom perch to the top of the tube with 10mm flat bar to build a new perch on the top. The 10mm flat bar got in the way of the swaybar. I suppose I could just add a 10mm spacer plate between the diff and the swaybar, but I have everything off at the moment, so if I can make it work, and look good and fairly standard, it would be first prize.

I thought I was going to spend some time last weekend on the Sani, but my step daughter got ill and we ended up looking after two grandkids for the weekend. I got about three hours in on Sunday afternoon and got the second bracket built.
The two brackets ready for install....

Wednesday evening the Corsa gave us a surpirse, it's had clicking CV's for a while now, was not getting any worse till it dropped all it's balls out in the driveway as I turned in. No sweat, Thursday we will get a replacement, R200 and we done.

Thursday morning we jump in the Bantum, and half a block down the road, the temp goes from ice cold to normal in one jump. Stop the car as this is in no way normal. Water running out the rear of the engine at the spark plug for no1 cylinder. WTH........ Freewheel it back home and fill it up. Water making a fountain from head, just next to the spark plug..

Looks like the head is cracked.

Two cars down in 12 hours and no other transport. With the Sani, three cars in my yard, all FUBAR. Get to work at after 10 and my SIL gets the new CV and hitches a ride back to my place, just to find we forgot to swop keys and my garage is locked .... He breaks into my garage and it takes me an hour in the dark last night to get the door to lock again.

At least the Corsa is running again today.

Tomorrow is the great balancing act. The Sani has to be lifted with the hilift on the bull bar to get it high enough to move the diff around under the springs. Its precarious, to say the least. The bottom of the bullbar has to be lifted to just over a meter to get the springs to clear the diff, and to fit the 33" tyres under the bumper and roll them in under the Sani directly from the front.

I have it standing on 700mm high "jack stands" under the chassis, and that only lifts the chassis by 100mm from it's normal position..
Then I need to figure a way to center it perfectly while "delicately" shifting the diff with both wheels on it.

My plan is to have taken it around the block by Sunday afternoon, maybe even with the swaybar in place.

It's all back together
My Neighbor, who is a boiler maker on one of the mines, saw me unpacking the tools on Saturday and came over to chat, he ended up doing all the welding for me. :D Worked out nicely as I was worried I was not going to get done with the ten welding rods I had left.
The Sani has no battery at the moment, so I need to go fetch one out of the Bantum. The Bantum has a hole in the head and the bill looks like around 4K to fix it. So the Sani needs to do some duty for the business, and as I need the packing space, I had to take a step backward in the build, and put the diesel tank back in where it originally was.

Very tight fit with the shocks that have been turned....
Yes, and I know I snookered myself with that top bolt of the shock.... I should have turned it around before I put the tank in. It all gets sorted at the same time when the new diff goes in.

I have not been on a test run yet, so I don't know if the handling has changed, maybe tonight if I get home early enough. I need to go get some diesel as well, I realized the tank was very empty when I took it out, maybe 2 or 3 liters in it, closest garage is 12km away, and I remember it was just starting to stutter the last time I drove it too the shops :oops:

I have rounded up eight old shocks with pin and hoop ends, that I hope to use the mountings off of, for the sway bar connects. I need pins on the lower mount, and hoops on the top to match the original shock mounts that were installed to the chassis.
Here is how the pinion angle ended up..
Sani standing at 1,4 to 1,9 Deg (depends on where along the chassis I take the measurement)
Kingpin where it is standing = 8.9Deg
Diff plate/pinion = 1,8 deg

Effective Kingpin should thus be around 7 deg with a nearly perfect level pinion on the diff.

cool man.... good luck with the garage run... take a jerry can with...

In my hurry to get the tank in before it got dark, I neglected some testing on the front end that I should have done. With the turn of the diff, the draglink is now much closer to the leaf springs. The draglink itself is ok, but the passenger side ball joint retainer/lock plate stands too high top clear.

I have not even had a chance to see how close the driver side is.

Now to see if I can make that lock plate lower profile to fit, or if a entire new draglink needs to be constructed. I have tie road ends from a Fortuner that fits the pitmans, but I will need a piece of left thread bolt and lock nut for the one side of the draglink.

Gees, and here I thought I was going for a lekka test run, and I don't even make it out of the driveway