On Fri, 5 Aug 2005 jon@dakota-truck.net wrote:
>
> "Rich Werning" <rwerning@wi.rr.com> wrote:
> : I was pondering this whole topic while mowing the lawn tonight. The thing I
> : kept coming back to was the need / want to use as many easily replaceable
> : parts as possible. Parts that would be available in almost any town in the
> : country - be it junkyard, auto parts store, cycle shop, etc. That way it
> : would be easy to repair almost any damage you do while away from home & the
> : shop. Also, not sure how feasible it would be but if you were able to use
> : identical A arms for front and rear, same shocks, same size tires & rims, it
> : would make carrying spare parts much simpler.
>
>
> Good point. I don't see any reason why the same tires couldn't be
> used on all four corners,
main reason we don't is weight. also, with a two wheel drive vehicle some
tires are definitely much better at steering and some are much better at
going. Also, with our piecemeal stealing parts from here and there sort
of fab, our bolt patterns do not match front to rear - but that's
something avoidable. It certainly makes spares easier, but I'd rather see
two different tires on four of the same rims with two spares.
> and the same goes for the shocks, assuming
> you are able to build it with a 50/50 weight balance (more or less).
50/50 is pretty much impossible in a rear engine rear drive, so you'll
always want more dampening in the rear... in our case the shock mount
positions combined with the travel we wanted meant longer shocks were
wasted in the front, and mounting the shorties was easier too. That's
definitely something that could be overcome with different design
considerations though.
> Those air shocks on the UR buggy were pretty slick - I'd be tempted
> to go that route. Can the pressure in those shocks be varied to adjust
> their dampening characteristics?
Fully adjustable and rebuildable. The nitrogen pressure controls the
spring rate, the oil volume controls progressiveness and since they are
rebuildable you can change the shim/spacer/washer what-have-you to
customize jounce and rebound rates. We've only ever messed with oil
volume and pressure, I've never pulled one of them apart to futz.
-- MikeM now with stuff!
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