Fixing JAG IRS and front end ride heights
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10/10/2012-Just got my Snow White, Ltd rear crossmember and mounting hardware for the Jaguar rear end ! Top to bottom - thrust bars to go from the lower control arms to the frame, cutable, have to weld on the two bushing mounts just below that, then press in the bushings: center section torque mount that goes on the lower front of the Jag center section, with the two "side bars" that will mount with 4 of the welded on brackets to the sides of the frame. These counteract the torque of the driveshaft so that the bushing mounted center section takes a minimum of torque (the part with the red bushings on it). Notice that the shock mounts slide to the left and right for adjustments to the angle of the spring loaded shocks to adjust ride height.
Top to bottom - torsion bars to go from the lower control arms to the frame, cutable, have to weld on the two bushing mounts just below that, then press in the bushings: center section torque mount that goes on the lower front of the Jag center section, with the two "side bars" that will mount with 4 of the welded on brackets to the sides of the frame. These counteract the torque of the driveshaft so that the bushing mounted center section takes a minimum of torque (the part with the red bushings on it). Notice that the shock mounts slide to the left and right for adjustments to the angle of the spring loaded shocks to adjust ride height. Showing the slide shock mounts and the top plate mount and bushings that the center section bolts to. Notice that the top mount plate is mounted at a 3 degree angle so that if the cross member is mounted on the horizontal, the angle of the driveshaft will be correct (maybe, cause it depends on where the ass end of the transmission is).
Getting it in position. C/L of axles came out perfect at 14.5 inches off the ground. Drawings work! It's actually hanging by the straps and barely resting on the frame.
Update: First attempt..........This is the passenger side mounting assembly on the Snow White kit rear crossmember and fuel line next to it with disconnected shock absorbers - that I have not done yet. There are four 5/16"x1" fine thread bolts in the bottom of the plate that go into a tapped plate inside the crossmember. Note that in the next picture, the shock mount points in the opposite direction as this one (turned around 180 degrees to move the pivot point toward the outside by about 1.5" .
UPDATE: 8/04/2020: This isn't a good thing to do, as the load is concentrated in a flat area of the crossmember, and it dented in a little bit. I have decided to raise it back up, in conflict with how this gallery seems to end up. The car is too low so I'm going back up one inch. but using stacked 3/8 solid rod so the weight is taken between the bolts and the edges of the crossmember. ORIGINAL INFO: This is the driver's side that I just did. The spacer is a piece of 2-1/4" exhaust pipe cut to 1-1/4" length. The bolts have spacers on them because my local hardware only had three 2-1/2"x5/16" bolts in stock, so I got three 2-1/2" bolts and five 3" bolts. Going to have to go to Home Depot anyway because the 3" with spacers will not go into the holes above the shock mount (on the left in this picture). I also reversed the mount to move the pivot point of the shock toward the outside of the car. This decreased the angle between the lower control arm mount and the centerline of the shock, increasing the leverage just a little bit. This dimension worked out really well, as you can see that the upper shock mount is only about 1/4" below the mounting location so I only have to lift the lower control arm 1/4" to align the 5/8" bolt mount. In addition, with the shocks mounted as they were, the only way to remove a rear tire was to disconnect the shocks, while at the same time, deflate the tire. This cures both problems at once ! ! !
This is the stance "as built"... which was good except for the fact that the exhaust pipes behind the rear wheels kept scraping the ground everytime I hit a dip or had passengers. Very annoying. So after the changes shown in the first two pictures, she rides quite a bit higher than this.
Pretty wild.. with a 1-1/4" spacer on the shock mount and moving the shock mounts toward the outside, the car now rides about 4" higher in the rear. Nearly looks a little to high... well, it's easy now to adjust since all the parts are there.. just 4 bolts and slip out the spacers..UPDATE: I decided this was just too much of a rake on the car. So after FOUR different configurations, I settled on ........see the next picture......
UPDATE: 8/2/2020: This is still too low, so I'm raising it back up with 1" spacers, which should give me about 2" to 3" lift. In addition, I'm swapping my 2" S-10 spindles with a guy in Florida for a pair of stock spindles, that will raise the front by 2". ORIGINAL INFO: Ok, this is where it stays. To get this approximately 2" lift, all I did was to reverse the Snow White kit upper shock mounts (and remove the spacer) so that the upper shock mount was about 1.5" closer to the outside of the car, changing the angle of the shock/spring forces more vertically. The ride seems slightly stiffer, as the spring rate is changed by the geometry of the spring direction in relation to the lower control arm mount. DONE !
8/3/2020: These are 3/8" x 3/8" steel bars, cut from two 36" bars from Home Depot that will be used for spacers. The 1/2" bars that I bought would not fit between the mounting bolts and the outer edge of the shock mount. As it turned out, I have TWICE as many little bars than I needed... oh well, they weren't expensive..
8/04/2020....I first thought that 4 bars stacked would give me about 4 inches lift, but I was wrong. These 3 gave me 4" lift... too much, So I took one of them out, and 2 bars (3/4") raised the car 3", if you can believe that... due to the geometry of the location of the shock mount relative to the tire location, the lift is multiplied a lot. Decided this was not good.
