watts link mounting question...

[primate]

i made a small watts link at work, and was toying with it a bit...

it seems to me that the only way the rear end will truly stay in the middle is to have the pivot on the rearend, not mounted rigid...

the other way, it locates nicely, but it can go off center on extremes.

is this a big deal or am i just a newbie that is overthinking the situation and should realize that the only way it wont be centered is in an extreme situation, and if the rearend ever gets off center like that, i gots bigger probs. :hammer:

just trying to figure out my 3link, thats all.:rolleyes:

thanks in advance.

[baz67]

Idealy you would like to mount the bellcrank to the chassis and the linkage to the axle housing.

[primate]

Idealy you would like to mount the bellcrank to the chassis and the linkage to the axle housing.
i see thats how fays2 does it, but according to the drawings in the milliken book, and by my little experiment, i think it would be better if you could have it with the bellcrank on the axle....
am i wrong in the way i am percieving it?

i plan on running a fab9 housing with a brace, so mounting the bellcrank to it shouldnt be a prob.

[sinned]

Having the bell crank located on the axle adds the weight of the bracketry to the unsprung side of the equation. You shouldn't have any lateral movement of the axle regardless of where the bell crank is located as long is it properly designed.

[Mean 69]

More importantly, the bellcrank mounted to the frame configuration results in a very nice by-product. Namely, the roll moment, which is in basic terms the distance between the roll center, and the COG of the sprung mass, is fixed: it doesn't migrate dynamically. The result of this is a stable roll resistance in bump and droop, the torsion bar and springs don't see a varying force when the suspension migrates.

M

Edit: Typo

[primate]

awesome. thank you very much for the help.

[hssss]

What about using a Mumford link? It is my understanding that it works better than a watts link.