Double Wishbone LT Front Suspensions

[slonomo]

Originally Posted by jclark138

Hey Slonomo - thanks for posting this! Lots of valuable information and insight

I've been wanting to do this for a while.

[slonomo]

As one can see, the Jake's LT looks nearly identical in design to the atv suspension. I think Jake's was really looking to make golf carts off road capable.

Let's compare these to a stock suspension. This one is a G29 Yamaha. It's a single a arm McPherson strut design. This design is a step up from a single a arm swing arm design, but it's definitely not designed for off road. The spindle is fixed with the king pin type design, which is very heavy duty. But the fixed spindle means the wheel camber changes with suspension movement. So these suspensions are usually designed to move 2" up, and 2" down, that's it. If you try to increase travel, you find out quick that the camber change is too much and this affects driveability drastically.

[slonomo]

Articulation:

Here are some examples of what articulation is. It's purely an off road thing. It's simply when one wheel moves and the other one doesn't.

In a double wishbone LT suspension, you can see that both tires are camber neutral, straight up and down.

In a straight axle suspension, both tires are parallel to each other, but the camber is negative on one side, positive on the other. Great for low speed rock crawling. Terrible for higher speeds.

[slonomo]

Suspension Drop/Extension and Compression.

During extreme maneuvers the suspension will likely reach it's limits. The suspension can be designed for different uses. This UTV is obviously built to jump, I've seen many do it safely. I'm not saying you can jump a golf cart, or that you should, because that's pretty dangerous without proper safety. What I'm saying is that these double a arm suspensions are very capable because of the amount of travel they have.

Drop, or Extension, is the amount of suspension travel downward into a hole or open space.

Compression is the amount of travel the suspension will move upwards under a heavy load.

Sag:
A well setup off road suspension will be set up somewhere in the middle or just above the middle. This allows the suspension to move freely in both the upward and downward directions. Ideally you'd want equal up and down movements.

How to set sag: With the vehicle on a jack stand, gently lower the front end until the tires just touch the ground. Measure up to the top mount of the coil over. Then let the vehicle down on it's own weight. Measure again. That difference is your sag. If you have 8" of full travel, you might want to start at 3" of sag. That gives you 3" of upward movement, and 5" of downward movement.

Never do you want your suspension to be set up in the max height position. This will cause steering issues and the ride will be more harsh. It's also not good for your tie rod ends/heim joints and/or ball joints. The joints will be constantly bumping their upper limit and the joints will wear.

[slonomo]

Coil Overs:

The term describes a shock with a coil spring over top. In most atv's, utv's, and lots of racing type vehicles, coil over's are the standard.

There are many things to talk about in regards to coil overs. Here's some great videos explaining the in's and out's. This is a jeep shock, but the idea is the same across the board.

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[slonomo]

Some coil overs have a schrader valve, or air line fitting, like on a tire. This is for nitrogen charging. These types of shocks have a small air bladder inside the body that allows for resistance to the oil inside from compressing. I am not an expert on this by any means. Here's another video lol

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Some of us have used atv coil overs for our golf carts and they work really well. It's a trial and error game though, so be prepared to spend some coin to try and get it right. If you buy used, you can always sell them if they don't work and you won't lose money if you are careful.

Atv shocks are usually preload adjustable, that is for setting the ride height, and sometimes for adjusting the spring tension for a larger or smaller rider.

Not all atv shocks are compression and rebound adjustable, but the better ones are. If you see atv shocks that have reservoirs attached, those will be fully adjustable and nitrogen charged. Those will be the best types, also more expensive.

Some shocks have two or three springs. These are for racing and may not be the best for a golf cart. You really have to know what you're doing to get into multiple springs.

[slonomo]

I have a couple shocks that are leaking, so I'm researching how to rebuild them. I'm finding out not all shocks can be rebuilt, and finding parts are not that easy. This video shows how to disassemble and repair mx style coil covers. Basically if you have shocks that have a threaded preload feature, chances are you can disassemble the shock it the same manner as this video shows. That goes for car and truck shocks as well.

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[azTony]

Great info!

[rifter]

Really good thread there, Thanks for sharing.

[Out2Sea]

Originally Posted by slonomo

I've been wanting to do this for a while.

Glad you did. Those in the know, know a double wishbone is the current best way to go.