Raising a lowered bus with flipped Antiroll bar

[Haveacamper]

OK, so I was just about to "TRY" and raise my bus slightly knowing that its a nightmare.

I jacked the bus up and managed to get my adjusters off. I then proceeded to jump up and down on one of the wheels to see if i could rotate the trailing arms. Not to my surprise, nothing happened.

My new optimism did mean that it didnt stop me from looking to see if the top or bottom bolts in the torsion leaves had moved though. It was then, when I think I may have realised a second reason for it not moving....

I have a flipped ARB - as in the ARB is mounted to the top surface of the lower trailing arm:

As I jack the bus up the trailing arms lower and the ARB rotates up. What I hadnt noticed/realised was that when i jack the bus off the floor the ARB actually rests pretty much on the beam endplates and the chassis rails:

Therefore, am I right in thinking that if I am trying to raise the bus - i.e. rotate the trailing arms down - the arb is wanting to continue rotating up. But it cant because its fouling on the end plates/chassis rails?

This surely results in my only option to raise the bus would be to remove the ARB and fit to the bottom of the lower trailing arm in the Stock location?

FYI by bus is on its lowest setting on the adjusters (Albatross style)

NaFe

 

[Clem]

Im not sure on the effect of the arb as I removed mine, but my experiance has been you cant move the adjusters at all with flipped spindles - you have to release either the upper or lower trailing arms from the balljoints. Massive PITA in regards to fine tuning ride height.

 

[Haveacamper]

Thanks for the head up Mike. Its not a job i was looking forward to, but there's a requirement here in Melbourne that you have to have 100mm ground clearance so was planning on making sure I was safe. I believe thats 100mm clearance at fully laden!

I may also have to remove my rear ARB as that kits down very low

 

[Zcat7]

I would say that it depends on how high you want to raise your bus. What you're really interested in is the position of the ARB once the bus is settled on its wheels at the height you are after. So it could be that you need to temporarily remove the ARB (from the flipped position) while you rotate your torsion leaves, in the way you are currently trying to do. Then once you have the adjusters locked up you can refit the ARB in the flipped position, albeit by jacking the body and the wheels up a bit. Or, if you find that the torsion arms are at a suitable angle after you have raised your ride height, just put the bar back in the correct position below the arms.

The thing is with rotating the torsion leaves us that the trailing arms start to angle downwards, pointing the ARB at the floor. Then, when you hit a bump or compression, they point even more so and the ARB scrapes along the ground. If you meet a raised manhole cover at this point your ARB is toast (ask me how I know...).

 

[Haveacamper]

Probably leave it as it is then hehe. the ARB is not the lowest point on the front and I beleive the lowest is above the the 100mm clearance requirement - thanks to good sized tyres. None of the skinny small tyres here

The other reason for raising the bus slightly was to create a little more clearance between the outer tyre and the inner wheel arch lip. A solution i have is to remove the front spacers (at least for the registration check) - so long as I am able to still achieve full lock!

Thanks

 

[Haveacamper]

Turns out that I will have to raise the bus as the beam endplates are just less than 100mm from the ground in the unladed condition, so obviously be less in when laden.

Also the rear is pretty low with the creative engineering rear adjustable springplates. even on the highest setting the ridehieght drop means my rear exhaust/rear ARB is looking pretty close to 100mm too

Damn those Aussie rules!