DISCO TYRES

According to the chart here the standard tyres for the disco are

Lifting the suspension will give more room under the arches allowing articulation with bigger tyres but bigger tyres may risk contacting the body particularly on the front wheels, wheels with a wider offset will help this though.

I suspect someone who has put larger tyres on a disco will be along presently.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

I don't know about the tyre size, but just sitting here and having a think about lengthening the springs poses two possible problems that I can see - well, three now that I've had a few extra seconds of thought....

Longer springs will probably need longer reach shock absorbers so that they don't "bottom out" too early.

There may well be issues with the axle trailing arm/hockey stick to chassis bushes and the amount of give available in them to accommodate the greater amount of "down" angle at full extent.

The flexible brake hoses to the axles may well become the only thing preventing further down articulation of those axles.

Oh yes, I've thought of a fourth possible problem.....

The articulation angles of the propeller shaft joints.

So, it seems to me that it's not just a case of whacking on longer springs to be able to fit bigger tyres. You'd also need different shock absorbers, specially shaped axle arms or bushes, longer brake hoses and maybe different propeller shaft joints.

Steve

Usually the longer springs (2 inches longer or more) are bought with the longer shocks. not many seem to bother with the longer brake hoses as that would only be a factor at extreme articulation which few achieve, the radius arms with altered castor (3 degrees up to 2 inch lift, 6 degrees up to 4 inch lift) will make the road handling more 'normal' I am told and I'd fit these if I was lifting 2 inches or more. As for prop shaft joints, I've heard of props having an extra UJ at the transfer box end to deal with the height but I don't know how 'needed' that is.

Unless you want the lift for other reasons also then I'd ask around about the biggest tyres that'll fit as standard as I mentioned in my other reply. Don't forget that taller tyres will change the reading on your speedo, reading slower than actual speed.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

On or around Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:20:14 +0000, Mr.Nice. enlightened us thusly:

ITYM 245/65... standard tyres AFAIK are 205R16, 225/75R16, 235/70R16.

the 3 listed above are all approximately the same diameter.

bigger ones such as 235/85R16 will need an inch or two of lift, I should think.

On or around Sat, 18 Dec 2004 11:22:21 +0000 (UTC), "Steve" enlightened us thusly:

if you only go for 2" lift, then you shouldn't need more than springs and dampers, and/or some of "llama" David's nice lowered damper turrets. BTW, the MOT bloke was much impressed by them.

BTW, you forgot one: if you lift it too much, the steering geometry is wrong. Someone makes replacement swivel housings with altered geometry to correct this. ISTR hearing that 2" is about as far as you want to go without changing this.

The rest of the suspension is probably OK, and the brake pipes can be checked for length before actually venturing into extreme terrain.

fairy fluff, was going off a chart in an article all about tyres in june 2003 issue of LRM.

Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)

Jason Hall composed the following ...

I have BFG AT 31 x 105's on and they just scrape the paint off the rear wheel arches at the very bottom four inches or so. After a particularly hard 'landing' we did slightly curl up the nearside rear bottom section. There have been so such problems at the front.

If you put bigger springs on, put longer shocks on too, to allow extra travel to be used .. ;)

Lifting it will make them fit while you're stationary but longer springs won't help much in a crossaxle situation offroad as once they're compressed you'll still find the tyres and bodywork come into contact. The only surefire way of keeping big tyres clear it to carve some metal out of the wheelarches. I'm told this isn't too bad to do on a 2door but on a 4door the rear arches are tricky to modify as the rear door skins form part of them.

Paul