Im still alive guys, I missed this place lol
Been really busy leading up to christmas, and unfortunatly i havent been busy on the car. But, i should have some decent updates soon, been working on the rear suspension, made some carboard templates up for my cantilever system......some teaser shots for now. Ive actually revised the bell crank angles again after these photos were takin, but the plan is to use some ride tech 1000 series airbags with 2.6" stroke, 1.5-1 bell crank ratio, which will give me the suspension travel i need, and still keep the system compact. The reason for the cantilevers was mainly because i dont have a whole lot of room to run the airbags under the car, and i figured what the hell, a bit more wow factor.
Like i mentioned i have revised the bell crank, as i had the angles wrong causing a decreasing rate on the spring instead of a rising rate, im pretty much making sure i keep the pushrod to bell crank angle @ 90deg and the airspring to bell crank @90 deg (at ride height)

looking  good! did you bend those rails yourself slammy, or did you purchase them?

Daze wrote:

well you make the phrase "Ive been really slack lately, like really really slack!" look like you got a lot done.  I think its all the pictures.  That is one of my favorite parts of your post there so visual that a person can really see what you are working on.  It may not seam like a lot of work but we all know that those "little" jobs take a lot of time so the more of those you can nock out the better can't weight to see more, thanks for posting.

Thankyou Daze, good when someone else appreciates the effort involved, its all these little niggly jobs that take so long! Im a pretty simple person, not good at working things out on paper, I kind of have to put things together and rework where neccasary lol

Ive been really slack lately, like really really slack!

anyways, made my adjustable mounting rods for the rear supports omn the jag IRS. Ive ditched the factory jag rods and made some new ones utilising some XF watts link rods. I needed the rods to be shorter than the jag ones, just because of the differnt shape of the floor and how far up inside the car i have the IRS assembly. Cutting down watts link rods made a bit of sence, there thicker walled, bigger in diameter, buysh's are available in nolathane, and there free. First i cut the rods down and tapped a 14 x 1.5mm thread into them, I wanted the thread resonably fine for better adjustment, and 14 x 1.5mm was as fine as i had. Inital plan was to buy some grade 8 all thread, but it doesnt seem to exist, so i bought some long grade 8 bolts, cut the heads of and got the threads cut on the lathe, so now ill be able to easily adjust pinion angle on the diff, which makes it easy to fine tune and match the pinion angle to the transmission.






Here you can see the jag tube diamter vs the XF watts link



all done, Jag vs New rod




and this is how i plan to set them up, the RHS is just some old "I used a word I shouldn't have" i had lying around, but this is the size ill use, it will tuck up a bit higher and have the required bracketry welded on to secure the rods.









The twin exhausts will pass in between the rods and diff centre

hmmmmm camber

[img]http://img.photobuck

This sounds exactly how the Jag XJ40 IRS is setup from factory
just eyeballing it theres around 6 to 8 degrees angle on the lower arm pivot (pivot on the diff centre angles down from the front) they have also angled the hub another 2 degrees or so (eyeballing it) the downside to this is rearward travel of the hub as it goes through its travel.

so you have anti squat and toe steer, although i struggle to get my head around how the angles allow it to change toe. I know for a fact it does, its just my feeble brain isnt good with angles and geometry

wow, great new, that must be a big releif!

well, after a few hours of drilling cutting, getting covered in grinding sparks I have the watts link crap removed, what a nasty job that was









and heres whats left....good riddance to it



put the IRS back in to check how the rear mounting struts will sit





the drivers side rail opens up to the spare wheel tub, so it looks like ill need to shorten that rod 2". I think ill shorten both rods, as i want them to looks the same. Ill make the rods adjustable,
this way i can adjust my pinion angle easily



Out of interest, this pic shows just how well things line up. I used an old watts link rod to see how the lower spring mount on the jag IRS lines up with the spring tower





In this pic you will see where ive marked out this peice in the middle, its close to touching the diff, so it needs a minor trim and a bit of sheet will be welded in





and a few random pics for good measure







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well, i was a bit concerned with the possibility of the wheel travelling rearwards to much as the suspension compressed, because it seems the XJ40 ran a lot of what id only describe as +caster (not sure what else to call this angle) so i hung a string and plumb bob to the wheel arch and was happy to see a total of 1" of rearward travel on the hub from full droop to full compression, My fears have been all for nothing. Also bear in mind i will never use the full travel of this suspension, Im measuring the total travel, so the lower arm is going much lower than it is supposed to, the spring assembly would normally limit quite a bit

I put the angle finder on the mounting cradle, and when its set to 0deg the pinion is 1.5deg up, so im 99% sure this is how jag would have had it, with the lower mounting cradle set level with the rest of the car. The gearbox will easily go up to 1.5deg (plenty of room) and with this arrangment i have a 2deg angle on my tailshaft (angled down from the front) so i think im heading in a good direction

good advice and something ive been meaning to get done, good luck with it ralphy, hope it all amounts to nothing serious, Us males have a stupid menatility when it comes to getting regular checkups

Gareth

Daze wrote:

BTW I got so caught up in the pinion angle stuff  forgot to mention nice fab work on the brackets!!!!!

Thanks Buddy! more pics soon

Trans angle is 3deg down, which is easy enough to change, i could probably get that to 1.5 deg
I think i would be happy with a slight compromise and set the diff at 0deg, as i dont want any more angle on  my arms.

What is the reason jaguar ran an angle on the arms? There must be a good reason i would have thought, I figured it must be an anti squat feature and work a little like anti dive on the front upper arm?

heres a good read, C4 IRS into a beemer

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=119358

Daze wrote:

NOT FAIR!!!!
you got it easy I had to fabricate up this thing to make my set up "bolt in"

I didn't see a single mounting point in your situation  that couldn't be accommodated by making a simple bracket or two.  What is the wiring harness coming of the diff??  also what is your pinion angle in relation to the plane of the LCA pivots??  on the older units there were a couple of pinion angle options and we discussed them in great detail on past threads debating the best way to get the correct pinion, trans alignment.

Yeah, these IRS units look very user friendly, im suprised more people arn't using them.
the wiring is the ABS sensors, there is also a hall effect speedo sensor up near the diff on the left hand half shaft. I removed all that today.
I plan to match the pinion angle of the trans. my engine sits on my own fabricated mounts and is arund 2deg down, so ill run the irs @ 2deg up. How the lower arm anlgle will end up im not sure, but im not really concerned if the plane of the lower arms is not parallel with the ground, unless of course it end up being a ridiculous angle....ill cross that bridge when i come to it, but the great thing with this irs, pinion angle on the diff will be extremly easy too adjust by making adjustable rods for the rear mounts, the front mounts have plenty of give so theres a few degrees of flex there...

Keep in mind, mine wont be a true bolt in, i need to remove all my old watts link bracketry, so i wont be able to revert back to standard suspenson easily like your system

okay, a few pictures of it cleaned up

Okay, been giving this a lot of thought, and wouldnt mind some opininions. Im think of taking the hubs to and engineering shop and getting the holes tig welded with appropriate filler rod, machined and redrilled for ford PCD. The rotors, Im thinking of getting the holes milled down from the originals to the ford PCD It would almost be like slotting them really. The disc is Hub centric, it cant really go anywhere, as long as the holes are done properly so the disc has no rotational movement on the studs i cant see anything wrong with doing it this way, or am i missing something? The other alternative for the discs is to buy them drilled to the fors PCD from the manufacturer, which apparently is an option for an additional charge, im yet to confirm this though.
I suppose the big questions are, will welding the holes in the hub weaken the hub, and if so will they need to be heat treated after this process....
I might be barking up the wrong tree

Ive considered changing my front stud pattern to GM, but Ive already purchased the 18" wheels, which are ford

Thoughts?