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Willys Crawler 2.0 aka The Bastard

Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Pile of parts said:
Now you have me worried... I didn't read the threads on Pirate and love mine. However, I'm less than a year into them. Packaging all that on a a full frame Jeep is one of the biggest reasons I went with ORIs. They're an all in one solution and the only real downside I could find was fading at extended high speed bumps. Not really my style anyway and an additional reservoir can be added if it turns out to be.

As far as tuning... I'm certainly a rookie but was more intimidated by coilovers, spring rates, etc. I set my ORIs with more down travel than up with the ride height factored in. I'm running the 14" and have about 5"-6" of "shaft" exposed at ride height. That leaves 8"-9" down. Remember, these measurements run out to be quite a bit out at the wheel and can be even greater depending on the angle they're set at. When it comes to tuning, I set mine up at the suggested starting point, which I believe was 100 psi. I ran the Jeep around the neighborhood and did some turns in a parking lot. I felt like it was a little loose so I bumped it up to 120psi and haven't touched it since. I decided that to get a real feel I was going to have to run it on familiar trails and see. Remember, I was coming from only ever having driven leaf sprung Jeeps so this was my first time with links. Long story short, I love how it handled after running some pretty tough stuff. Very stable., Very flexible and traction with no wheel hop is great. Could it be fine tuned even better? Maybe but, for a trail Jeep, I haven't found reason to mess with it. What I'm saying is, if an idiot like me can make it work, so can you.
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I think there are way more happy ORI owners out there than unhappy ones.... you just hear about the unhappy folks.

I need to check out your rebuilt CJ, see how it works in person. And @Jinx too....
 
mbryson

mbryson

.......a few dollars more
Supporting Member
Location
Bountiful, land of rocks
Greg said:
Once you buy CO's, air bumps, limiting straps and add a real anti-sway bar.... then factor in that you don't need those with ORI's, the final costs are very close.
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I’m not sure I’m that committed to spending that much on my Jeep. I’m desiring a “fun” car again quite badly. I’ve got about 60-70% of my rear link stuff (other than decent shocks—that money keeps getting spent on tailgates, garage insulation, etc). I’ll finish up with my original plan on the Jeep and start into the $2 key car
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
mbryson said:
I’m not sure I’m that committed to spending that much on my Jeep. I’m desiring a “fun” car again quite badly. I’ve got about 60-70% of my rear link stuff (other than decent shocks—that money keeps getting spent on tailgates, garage insulation, etc). I’ll finish up with my original plan on the Jeep and start into the $2 key car
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I just wanna go fast.... and slow. I'm fully committed!
 
P

Pile of parts

Well-Known Member
Location
South Jordan
mbryson said:
I’m not sure I’m that committed to spending that much on my Jeep. I’m desiring a “fun” car again quite badly.
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I hear you. I was planning on leaving my Jeep alone for the time being. My focus was going to finally shift to building my '49 GMC, that I've had a lot longer than my jeeps. I was continually breaking leaf springs and knew that the GMC was going to be a long term project. The Jeep was going to continue to be my hobby so I spent the GMC suspension money on the Jeep suspension. It puts the old truck on hold a little longer but gives me satisfaction now by being able to continue wheeling. It would be nice to have all the money AND time...
 
RockChucker

RockChucker

Well-Known Member
Location
Highland
Things definitely get tight. That’s why my upper link is on the passenger side, the driver side bump is inside the frame and lands on the top of the diff. There is a steering box outside the frame where the bump could have gone. The passenger side had to be outside the frame. You can get away with out bumps and coilovers though. Matt with desert speed sets cars without bumps up with “snubbers” that go on the coilover shaft. They do a pretty good job adding additional damping to the last few inches of travel. Obviously your mounts would need to be beefed up for this strategy as well... I would not run with out limit straps though. They aren’t terrible to package at the very end. Even if they have to be hooked onto your links. I’ve not heard anything good about oris. One of my buddies back east had them on his old tj. He could never get them to perform the way he wanted. His next rig is building with coilovers. Even with the more difficult packaging. I’m sure just like everything knowing how to tune them is key, but it seems no one really knows how to tune them. The other concern I have is the seemingly long lead time to get them or if you need to service one. Just my $.02
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
RockChucker said:
Things definitely get tight. That’s why my upper link is on the passenger side, the driver side bump is inside the frame and lands on the top of the diff. There is a steering box outside the frame where the bump could have gone. The passenger side had to be outside the frame. You can get away with out bumps and coilovers though. Matt with desert speed sets cars without bumps up with “snubbers” that go on the coilover shaft. They do a pretty good job adding additional damping to the last few inches of travel. Obviously your mounts would need to be beefed up for this strategy as well... I would not run with out limit straps though. They aren’t terrible to package at the very end. Even if they have to be hooked onto your links. I’ve not heard anything good about oris. One of my buddies back east had them on his old tj. He could never get them to perform the way he wanted. His next rig is building with coilovers. Even with the more difficult packaging. I’m sure just like everything knowing how to tune them is key, but it seems no one really knows how to tune them. The other concern I have is the seemingly long lead time to get them or if you need to service one. Just my $.02
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@Herzog runs a similar setup with a bumpstop on the shaft of his CO's and it works great.

I know we've had this conversation before about ORI's, both you and Tim S. have had experience around them on the trail. They have come out with a new design that supposedly works better.

Jensen Bros in SLC does service and tuning of ORI's, not sure what their timeline looks like but its good to know that there's a local option. - https://www.jensenbrosoffroad.com/about-us

Now we have a handful of RME members running them with nothing but good to say... I think with anything new, they need time and a lot of various experience to see how they work out.
 
P

Pile of parts

Well-Known Member
Location
South Jordan
I bought mine through Jensen Brothers. Price was the same as anywhere, they were only 1.5 weeks out when I ordered and I knew I could get the technical support from them if needed. Lead time varies depending on time of year. Typically longer late fall/winter when everyone is building rather than wheeling. Again, I'm not familiar with the horror stories and not sure about the finer points of tuning them. I think it would have to do more with speed??? I'm pretty rudimentary in my suspension knowledge. I seem to recall there were issues with the early versions but I don't know what. Hopefully mine last because I'm happy so far. I had considered TJ coils just to keep things mechanically simple and easy to replace if I did have an issue on the trail, but that was going to require packaging all the extra parts and pieces under the frame. Can it be done? Yes. At this point, maybe I should have an extra ORI on hand to keep from ruining a weekend wheeling trip....
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Playing around some more with link locations, length, mounts, etc. Writing this info down for myself mostly, but if anyone wants to chime in, feel free. Hoping I can build my upper and lower links the same lengths.

Measuring from mounting hole to mounting hole, it looks like I can build my lowers to be 36" long, uppers around 30" long and the track bar around 36-38" long. I could make the lowers longer, but I don't know that its needed. Looks like lowers will be 5-6*'s at those lengths.

Should be able to pull off 10" separation at the front axle, hoping for a similar amount at the rear, but thats yet TBD.

Have a high clearance truss being built for the rear D70 that should let me mount my axle uppers on the sides, rather on top. Its being built out of 3/8" plate. Far as triangulation, I bought some rear-lower frame mounts that will bring the mount inside the frame, rather than directly underneath it. That should help make up for the loss of triangulation from the truss.

I ordered 8, 1 1/4" rod ends with threaded inserts and high misalignment spacers from RuffStuff for the lowers. They're currently out of 7/8" rod ends, so no uppers or track bar parts.
 
P

Pile of parts

Well-Known Member
Location
South Jordan
General rule of thumb that I read was link length should be 2 x travel and that measurement is based of the mounting points. So if you have 14" travel shock, strut, etc., your mounting points on the frame and axle would be at least 28" measured straight across. Your actual link length would be longer depending on how much triangulation.

Probably not a set in stone rule but it at least helped me know where to start on my lower links. From there it was a matter of where things would fit best. I have 14" travel and my mounting points are probably in the 32" range or so. Nothing binds and I get full travel, so I guess it worked. That info gave me a great starting point because originally I had my front lower links positioned much farther back, which would have been unnecessary and hindered clearance. I was still able to keep the lnk angle to a minimum.

Again, I'm no expert. This was my first link suspension build. Just passing along info that was helpful to me.
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Pile of parts said:
General rule of thumb that I read was link length should be 2 x travel and that measurement is based of the mounting points. So if you have 14" travel shock, strut, etc., your mounting points on the frame and axle would be at least 28" measured straight across. Your actual link length would be longer depending on how much triangulation.

Probably not a set in stone rule but it at least helped me know where to start on my lower links. From there it was a matter of where things would fit best. I have 14" travel and my mounting points are probably in the 32" range or so. Nothing binds and I get full travel, so I guess it worked. That info gave me a great starting point because originally I had my front lower links positioned much farther back, which would have been unnecessary and hindered clearance. I was still able to keep the lnk angle to a minimum.

Again, I'm no expert. This was my first link suspension build. Just passing along info that was helpful to me.
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That makes sense, thanks for the insight! Sounds like I'm on the right track with my link lengths then.
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Bart said:
I am a BIG ORI fan and had them on the rear of the CJ.
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That's right! I think I'm going to run 14" ORI's at this point, mostly due to the packaging and simplicity of not needing additional pieces. Probably going to buy 2 at a time, so it doesn't hurt the wallet as much. :grimacing:
 
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