panhard bar location

[IIGW]

here is my info (2 pennies worth)

Panhard bar will move the axle left and right, as been stated above. The problem with them is everyone says set the bar at ride height parallel. The big problem with this suggestion is your truck is on air ride. Why does that matter? Because you installed air ride to be low at the hangouts, cruise-ins and slammed when parked. And if you set that panhard bar parallel when you are at ride height, it will pull that axle to the side when its aired out and every time you look at it, and anyone else does, what do they see? An axle that is not centered in the truck… meaning hey look he didn’t measure correctly when he built the suspension. It will happen, and you will hate every minute of it. How do you go about fixing this? The triangulated set up was already talked about, and as you stated unless you sell your current set up your stuck. So you have two options, maybe three. Move the bars inside of the frame and use a track bar from the rear left mount to the front right mount, thus keeping the axle centered and wont move left or right. Option two, add a trac locator, which is a single mount on the axle and goes into a “Y” which mounts to both left and right sides of the inner frame, which also will keep the axle centered. And last you can add a watts link to the rear of the axle.

[Stepside Jim]

I do see what IIGW is saying, due to the extreme travel, and due to to the fact that the truck will sit and stay at an extreme travel, the off centerness will be more noticeable.

There is one other type of axle centering device that is called a Watts linkage.

It has a center pivot and the linkage works from there, the axle stays centered.

Speedway has a Watts linkage kit available. Finding a way to mount the center pivot to the axle is the biggest decision. Since you have the frame sections dropping down behind the axle and you haven't made a bed floor yet, I figure you'd have many choices how to mount this kit.

Use Watts linkage on the Speedway site to see the kit.

On Google images under Watts linkage there are many images to give an idea of how the system works.

Good luck, Jim

[Chris.]

Originally Posted by IIGW

here is my info (2 pennies worth)

Panhard bar will move the axle left and right, as been stated above. The problem with them is everyone says set the bar at ride height parallel. The big problem with this suggestion is your truck is on air ride. Why does that matter? Because you installed air ride to be low at the hangouts, cruise-ins and slammed when parked. And if you set that panhard bar parallel when you are at ride height, it will pull that axle to the side when its aired out and every time you look at it, and anyone else does, what do they see? An axle that is not centered in the truck… meaning hey look he didn’t measure correctly when he built the suspension. It will happen, and you will hate every minute of it. How do you go about fixing this? The triangulated set up was already talked about, and as you stated unless you sell your current set up your stuck. So you have two options, maybe three. Move the bars inside of the frame and use a track bar from the rear left mount to the front right mount, thus keeping the axle centered and wont move left or right. Option two, add a trac locator, which is a single mount on the axle and goes into a “Y” which mounts to both left and right sides of the inner frame, which also will keep the axle centered. And last you can add a watts link to the rear of the axle.

I came over from the mini truck scene and in my experiences which may mean nothing to the rest of the car community when it comes to bags but most people with bags ride height is extremely low mine is built at a 5in ride height lower to park higher for obstacles only. I agree however that parallel 4link with panhard bar isn't the best setup for bags but it isn't uncommon and probably not unreasonable for say 0in to 6in of travel