510 Wagon Rear Lowering Kit

[Just Joel]

I'm 4" lower than stock (approximately of course) and with the traction bars and 3° pinion correction I have no pinion slap issues on the heaviest of acceleration or over bumps...

 

Joel

[Dzaster]

Pic or link of tractions bars Joel?

[Just Joel]

Sure thing...

 

Components

 

 

 

Installed

 

 

 

Ground clearance

 

 

 

This is at driving height (for around my pothole ridden town at least) With no air in the shocks, she is about 3/4" lower

 

 

 

Later

Joel

[Dzaster]

Right on. Those the bars I'll be building as well. Good to hear that they actually work. Thanks for sharing. Looks real good.

[Dzaster]

Btw Joel, that is without driveshaft/differential tunnel editing I take it?

[Just Joel]

Correct... tunnel modifications only compensate for axle wrap by allowing adequate room for it to occur. The traction bars eliminated the wrap completely at the source in turn keeping the pinion out of the floor tin. ;)

 

Joel

[Dzaster]

Boom! Great info! This will be my project for the weekend--T-bars

 

. BTW, nice welding.

 

Thanks for sharing

[Just Joel]

Thanks man :)

 

Post up when they'er done ;)

 

Later

Joel

[dakotahchore]

Joel...Interested in selling another bar setup like that? 

[Just Joel]

Pm'ed you Dako

 

Thanks

Joel

[Loren O]

I'd like a set also,along with a set of your lowering blocks. I don't weld,so if you're making them i'm interested. Plrase pm me . Thanks! -Loren

[nullbound]

I'm also very interested in a set of the traction bars and 3 degree pinion correction.  PM coming your way.

[dakotahchore]

Long story short, he can't make them for us guys! They are unique for each application... gotta do our own or pay someone to do em. 

[Dzaster]

When I originally searched and found this setup it was on Kelvin Dietz wagon (Click). I got in touch with him and he, at the time, was willing to sell me what he felt was his last kit. He quoted me and said he would look for the parts. I hadn't heard for a long while so I began putting together the parts to make my own kit.

 

Last he emailed me last week, he said he had found the parts and was seeing if I still needed the kit/parts. I declined and thanked him for his time, willingness and help.

 

After starting on my kit I think I would have loved to have been given the parts to just weld together instead of the mocking up, cutting, and grinding that I'm having to do. Plus it doesn't help that I don't have a lot of choices for hardware/material and limited by tools.

 

I wasted a few hours trying to get to this point (see pics below) because welding two nuts together to get one long one just isn't easy, as once you weld, it will offset the nuts ever so slightly that it binds. I finally got it, but its still a little tough getting it to thread. No matter, I don't plan to adjust much/if at all--after the initial adjust that is.

 

Anyways, perhaps if someone really wants they can try and get in touch with Kelvin Dietz and see if he wants to sale what he has. His kits still requires welding.

 

 

 

Please don't mind the sloppy welds. Being flux core with no gas, doesn't help my cause. lol

 

 

 

 

Question for Joel, I'm assuming the bars are adjusted, preloading the axle. Anyways you can suggest by how much to preload them?

[jesusno2]

Those traction bars are cool they work well for anyone interested look up Cal tracs

[Stitebunny]

I'd like a set of those too!

It sounds like someone with the means and skills could make a few bucks off the rest of us!

[Just Joel]

I would love to make these for you guys and had planned to potentially market these after confirming the design on my car but during the design and construction phase, I realized that this wasn't going to be a "universal kit". The problem is that the bar length, tab locations and angles will change based on ride height and lowering method (de arched springs, blocks only, both... etc.) That said, I can make a kit that will fit but it won't be optimized the same if I built it with your car right in front of me. Also, these kits won't be cheap because of the cost of materials and the labor and time involved. After nailing down the particulars, I may be able to reduce costs but for now these are one off pieces and come with a custom price. If your serious about wanting a set, pm me and I'll see what I can do about putting together a price.

 

Joel

[Dzaster]

Considering the ride height and bar length, what should I shoot for--bars to be parallel with ground, long enought to preload axle so much, etc.

[Just Joel]

I design for ground clearance more than anything. Make the bars as long as possible too increase leverage and yes, as parallel to the body as you can make them ( this kinda works itself out) I don't pre load my bars... instead I set them up neutral as the swing angle of the suspension movement maintains a constant bar length (i.e. no suspension bind during articulation) with my current geometry figures.

 

Joel

[jrock4224]

those front mounts are gonna drag the ground ....alot.......

[Just Joel]

no they won't... they are 1/4" shorter than stock and I never had a problem before ;)

 

Joel

[Dzaster]

Thats what i thought too, that is was hanging down lower.

 

However, you've eliminated a bit of the excess--which was insulation--to move the front of the leaves up closer to the undercarriage.

[jrock4224]

still every driveway u pull in it will drag .......it wont take much of  incline of a driveway to make those dig in

 

 

and i thought cal trac made there's with a slip yoke to compensate for binding...edit...nope ... one of the manufacturers did...

[Just Joel]

still every driveway u pull in it will drag .......it wont take much of incline of a driveway to make those dig in

 

and i thought cal trac made there's with a slip yoke to compensate for binding...edit...nope ... one of the manufacturers did...

What your referring to is a slip twist joint. What we need to realize is that there are two very different traction bar designs that we're talking about here.The first is a ladder bar which mounts at two points diff side ( one above and one below the pinion) and a single mount at the frame. This configuration will create a force vertical or perpendicular to the frame so a slip twist joint will bind while it's required to dampen axle wrap, but slip and twist inside itself during general suspension movement.

A single traction bar mounted under the leaf springs like I've designed creates a forward force or parallel to the frame. In this case, a slip twist joint would only telescope under axle wrap situations, nullifying the benefits of even having a traction bar. I've noticed a couple designs being utilized where this was an issue.

Also, I've oriented my mounts in such a way that the length between the two mounting points at the track bar doesn't change during suspension movement. This means that the bar is the same length at ride height, full compression and full droop... it will only bind when the axle tries to wrap during acceleration (like it should) but not during regular driving.

And like I said, I've never had a problem dragging the stock mounts so I suspect I will have even better luck with this setup ;) oh and this setup isn't new to me... I've already got a couple thousand miles on it.

 

Joel

[Just Joel]

Thats what i thought too, that is was hanging down lower.

 

However, you've eliminated a bit of the excess--which was insulation--to move the front of the leaves up closer to the undercarriage.

correct, that and the tire is so close to the front leaf mount that you would have drive over a curb or ledge to make contact. now if the mount we're three foot in front of the tire...