Traction bars of some kind and towing?

[kas83]

Any truck of this vintage that I've had has always had some sort of wheel hop issue. Not sure about others experience, but all my trucks have had stock 4x4 rear suspensions, and in somewhat slick situations or on uphill starts, they have tended to buck a little and chirped the tires. I am not flooring the throttle by any means, just trying to get moving. Either my 85 C6 or my two ZF's, they all seem to do it. And it is most definately not clutch slippage or shudder, this comes solely from the rear suspension and you can see it in the mirrors as the tires get closer to the fenderwell.

Anyways, I'm looking to build a set of traction bars to help combat this, but don't want it to interfere with the travel when I load the bed up or hook the camper to the truck. I'm thinking that the longer the bar, the less likely it will be to bind when the suspension is cycled. What are your thoughts? A couple of my sled pulling buddies have plenty of 1.5" OD 1/4" wall DOM tubing laying around, which I think would be plenty strong enough for this application, which will not include sled pulling either. Anyone have any experience or thoughts on the situation? Thanks for your help.

 

[jonathan]

i made some for my chevy they dont limit your travel and it also got rid of the anoying noise of the center support bearing. i made them with the same tubing you have ill try to post a pic

 

[Simp5782]

I thought bout using some steel tubing and using some chromemoly rod ends on both ends, mounting one end to the bottom of the skid plate under the transfer case and the other thru the u bolt bracket by just drilling a hole. Or maybe mounting the front to the frame

 

[Diesel_brad]

Make the ladder bars parallel to your driveshaft. They also say to make the frame connection point pivot, but i dont understand how the bars will limit wheel hop then

 

[kas83]

Make the ladder bars parallel to your driveshaft. They also say to make the frame connection point pivot, but i dont understand how the bars will limit wheel hop then

Which section of the driveshaft do I make my bars parallel to? The rear most section is at more of an angle than the front. Not a ton, but you can tell there's a difference.

 

[George D.]

yes the rear most section as thats the part that moves up and down with the axle. The frame conection needs to pivot the traction bars conect to the top and bottom of the axle preventing the axle from rolling but still alowing it to move up and down.

 

[93turbo_animal]

There is no way to just add ladder bars to your stock suspension with out there being binding. Now with that said most are not stiff enough or flexed far enough to display any problems but can aid in keeping your axle situated. The problem is the axle moves backwards when the springs compress so you need the latter bars to be at an angle so that when the suspension compresses the bars move closer to being horizontal which will be like the bar getting longer. To short and the angle will change to much making the bars move to much causing binding. So most go with long bars atleast as long as the rear section of the driveshaft. To make them with a pivot at the frame you make them so when sitting normal the latter bar is as far forward as it can go and the other pivot point is behind the end of the latter bar so when the axle drops it can pull the latter bar down and back.

 

[George D.]

Ok I tottally missunderstood what you guys were talking about whith the pivot that is a good way to keep the suspention from binding. On most of the rock crawlers I've built the way I do the traction bar is basicly the top tube that would run to the frame I make a few inches short and use a tube with a 1.5" iner diamiter then slip a 1.5" OD tube in it with a hyme joint on the end. it alows for full suspention trave if set up properly and zero wheel hop.

 

[jonathan]

i used leafsprings bushings on mine i just cut a piece of tubing and notched the traction bar then welded them together

 

[jonathan]

some pics

some pics

 

[redneckaggie]

maybe a retarted question but wouldnt you be better off to used a sprung shock to deal with the axle moving around as the suspension sags?

 

[bobracing]

maybe a retarted question but wouldnt you be better off to used a sprung shock to deal with the axle moving around as the suspension sags?

This isn't about sagging suspension, we’re taking the axle wrap. Axle wrap is when power is applied the spring make a "S" shape then spring back flat, "S" shaping causes the tires to hop. This "hop" is most noticeable when moving a heavy load or applying a lot of power, spinning the tires.

There are a couple ways to overcome this "S" shaping of the springs. Most hotrods run "slapper bars". The bars bolt under a spring pack and when a spring begins to "S" shape "slaps" the bottom of the above spring and stops a leaf spring from wrapping anymore.

Most Trucks will run the longer "traction bars" as pictured above. The problem with TBs is they only allow the axle to move in a arc determined by the length of the TBs. A leafspring not only moves up and down but forward and back as the spring flexes and is not the same arc as a TB, hence the bind talked about above.
A slight mod to the TB setup would be to add a shackle at the frame mount. This allows the TB to move back and forth without binding but when power is applied the TB pull up against the shackle and stops the wrap.

As mentioned above, a street truck probably doesn't have enough travel to worry about binding a frame mounted TB so this will usually work well for correcting the wrap problem on these trucks.

 

[93turbo_animal]

I think what redneck aggie is talking about is like quad shocks on mustangs to try and stop axle hop. Mounting a spring over shock like a traction bar this way you wouldn't have binding but you would have some help in keeping the axle situated. I guess the thing would be if its stiff enough to make any difference I don't know.

 

[redneckaggie]

kind of. run traction bars like pictured but use a shock or even coil spring at the end where junior used a leaf spring mount up next to the frame so that it would be able to have some movement in the length of the bar but still put pressure on the axle to hold it in place. I may not know what i am talking about but i was just thinking of this the other day because my truck has the same problem when pulling loads

 

[Diesel_brad]

Rancho made what redneckaggie is talking about. They were called "kicker shocks". they mounted to the top of the spring and then bolted the the front spring hanger