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Old 03-29-2014, 10:50 AM
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ckau ckau is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: central North Carolina
Posts: 915
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It's kind of ironic you should bring this up! We, at one time had actually planned to do a heim conversion on your dazon. Rich1 bought the buggy before the plan ever got off the drawing board. I got/had some initial concept drawings with dimensions somewhere. I'll post them if they still exist.
It's very do-able, the front wheel base width will be increased by aproximatly 2.5 inches and the steering arms length will also need to be lengthened. The most time consuming aspect would be the bung mounts in the A-arms. . I had also considered pointing the heims inwards rather than outwards, as like the yerf, in order to place the pivot point in the original location to keep wheelbase and steering arm stock dimensions.
The dilemma of setting the heim vertical or horizontal?
IMO, Placing the heim on the horizontal plane would be the way to go for several reasons.
The horizontal travel, as in steering movement far exceeds the vertical movement needed. There's only about 4 inches of vertical travel which falls well within the limits of the heim while using misalignment spacers so placing on the horizontal gives plenty of movement for all actions
80+% of force applied to the heim is on the horizontal plane. Just rolling forwards applies a certain amount of force on the horizontial plane. With striking an object as in a tree, stump rock or pot hole, initial force is applied rearwards then transmits into a vertical movement after total resistance is met. Vertical strength in irrelevant if the heim fails during the initial horizontal load force. plus the shock absorbs a good amount of that vertical force.
The force required to snap a decent quality heim would bend or tear a A-arm mount or the a-arm itself long before the heim itself fails, regardless of heim position.
you can only imagine the improvement heims would have on total strength , durability and articulation of the suspension. plus the ability to adjust front tracking.
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