Transit Drag Link - Range of Movement?
Discussion
I'm busy building a double wishbone front suspension set up, and had opted for the mainstay of a Maxi type bottom ball joint, and a Transit draglink for the top ball joint.
When I've checked the range of available movement in the Transit part, it works out at around 25° total.
Checking through my CAD model, this appears to be quite limiting, I reckon I'll needing more along the lines of 30 - 35°.
A couple of questions have come out of this.
1. Is this a typical range of movement for this part?
2. What sort of total suspension travel is "normal"?
3. Are there any alternatives of the same design (ie. ball joint with a male thread) that could be used in place of the Transit part?
Thanks,
Chris.
When I've checked the range of available movement in the Transit part, it works out at around 25° total.
Checking through my CAD model, this appears to be quite limiting, I reckon I'll needing more along the lines of 30 - 35°.
A couple of questions have come out of this.
1. Is this a typical range of movement for this part?
2. What sort of total suspension travel is "normal"?
3. Are there any alternatives of the same design (ie. ball joint with a male thread) that could be used in place of the Transit part?
Thanks,
Chris.
On a typical Lotus 7 style car using the Cortina/Sierra upright the suspension travel is often quite limited, around 4" total in many cases. The TRE/Drag link as an upper ball joint has always been a bit of a compromised design IMO, designed more for convenience/cheapness/availability than anything else. If you are designing from scratch it might be an opportunity to use a design that doesn't put bending stresses into the threaded shank of a rod end.
If you must use this design, then you could switch to a proper rod end (a.k.a "rose joint") which will likely give more angular movement than a typical track rod end.
If you must use this design, then you could switch to a proper rod end (a.k.a "rose joint") which will likely give more angular movement than a typical track rod end.
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