wheel hop on truck arms???
 

A couple of months ago I put a Lock-rite differential in place of my open diff. Ever since then I seem to be experiencing wheel hop.... I have the truck arm/coil spring suspension.... I thought it was almost immune to wheel hop???

As far as I know nobody makes traction aids for coil spring trucks. How can I reduce/eliminate my wheel hop before I break something???

if it helps.... I have a mild 383, 700r4, and 3.73 gears with fairly sticky 31" tires

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

Put a good shock in the rear!! See if you can put a Rancho 9000 so you have some adjustment.

What springs are in it?

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

Are you sure its wheel hop and not the lock-rite locking and unlocking? Its pretty hard to get bounce with that suspension setup.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

Have someone watch the tires (or a video camera) to confirm it is wheel hop.
If it is, then it's probably time for new bushings on the rear suspention all around.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

Man that is weird. Wheel hop is axle wrap in the spring pack. There is nothing to wrap in a trailing arm setup. Even with 18.5 M/T prostreet tires, she lays 'er down nice and smooth.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

Once you have confirmed it is indeed wheel hop inspect the trailing arms thoroughly. I concur on changing the shocks and bushings.

Energy Suspension makes bushings for the trailing arms as well as the panhard bar. I don't think a sway bar will help with wheel hop but it does further tie the rear end to the chassis and certainly can't hurt.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

if truck is lowered did you relocate shocks for proper operation?

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

its got Rancho RSX shocks in the rear.... but they are 5years old...and I go down a bunch of gravel roads so they might be toast..... I also installed polyurethane bushings in the panhard bar 5 years ago and I know they are still pretty good..... I pulled the panhard bar when I changed the rear end out from 3.08's to 3.73's

I'm not 100% sure its wheelhop.... but I do know that my tire marks look like it... and it feel like the rear is bouncing.... I will check it out further to make sure....


the truck is not lowered

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

There have been others on this board with wheel hop on truck arms and it was fixed with a shock swap (Not saying that is the only cause).

With factory height there is a chance there is > 100% antisquat. This means that under acceleration the rear tires are actually forced in to the ground causing the back of the pick up to raise slightly (IE chassis is seperating). If this happens and you don't have a shock that can control it, it can ocilate up and down as it gains/looses traction (wheel hop). Think about it, the harder you hit the tires in to the ground, the harder they apply a force wanting to come back up. Have a shock that can't control that energy and wala, wheel hop.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

im gonna hijack this if i may, i am having a similar problem with a bouncing rear end..but i thought it was maybe mis-aligned. i have the wheels equal distance from the frame, and the front as close to aligned that i can do at home. i have new shocks (monroes) and relocated mounts.

the problem..when driving between 10-20mph kind of coasting the bed is shaking around from side to side up and down and it is noticable when looking at it coming at you. just bouncing everywehre. the faster the less is shakes. what could cause this?

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

This sounds more like a tire that is "out of round" or possibly a bent wheel.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

mhhmm funny you say that...heres the whole story actually..

i go outta town for work. i get a call from my day who says he "broke" my truck...he took a turn too fast (i think from his nova days) and it slid/caught and broke my bracket for the panhard bar..the body slid over slamming the tires against the wood bed/frame underneath..so after we got it home i just remade a bracket. but it is at slighlty a differnt angle. almost perpindicular to the rear axel housing. instead of back to front angled..and i think that might make it less stable ffrom front to back in an engineering sense. i think it needs a slight triangle...so thats my thought,,BUT my initial thought was bent rim or the tire got messed up..which is totally possible but when i jacked up the truck it didnt have any wobble in the wheel..not noticeable at all so i dont now what it could be.

Re: wheel hop on truck arms???
 

haha i meant parallel to the axel housing...not perpindicular...:lol: