Any thoughts on fitting of wheel spacers to the Grenadier? Would this not allow for a tighter turning circle than currently available? What might the trade off be?
Wheel spacers are illegal in Australia for a wide variety of reasons, mostly because they are dangerous and can cause considerable extra wear and tear and damage to a vehicle.
I can understand that the manufacturer will set the vehicle up for optimum performance in the most extreme design conditions for which the vehicle is sold however, does this mean that to use spacers for perhaps road use and light off road only still carries the same sort of risks?
No doubt, they build mall crawlers.
Yes, I am no engineer, but to my mind this doesn’t add up. I can see no way in which wheel spacers improve anything other than possibly aesthetics of a vehicle, and many ways they can make it worse.Not following your thinking here. Adding width to the stance of a vehicle will (slightly) *widen* its curb-to-curb turning circle, if anything. No? The steering lock angle won’t be changed with a spacer.
I’m with you, though, in your desire to reduce the aircraft carrier turning circle!
My rationale was that if wheels are spaced out, the wheels can turn further In before hitting their stops. On my Defender, when fitting wheels that had a greater offset I was able to adjust the stops by a reasonable amount.
But using rims with a different offset is not illegal, am I right?
OK, OK, no spacers then. I get it.There is a video by Abntr4x4 where they show that cardan joints are used at the front axle and not homokinetic joints. They claim it is a double cardan joint, however, it doesn't look like one. It looks like a single caradan joint. That is unusual, as I found these kind of joints only with non-permanent 4x4's as the cardan joints output rotation does not have the same speed as the rotation input at a given point of time. That's why permanent 4x4x usualy have a homocinetic joint. Drive shafts which use two cardan joints are build in a way that the output part of the first cardan joint is 90 degree rotated to the output part of the second cardan joint to compensate that cardan error. The compensation is best, when both joints are bend at the same angle.
That's how it is done for drive shafts:
View attachment 7818850
But for me it looks like a single cardan joint which means, no compensation at all. If the cardan joint can't compensate its rotation speed variantions because the wheels have a good grip on the road, that means stress and wear in the joint because the cardan error is not just going away.
Universal joint - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Is that really the best choice?
Gruß
AWo
Although in the video only half of it is visible, the double u joint look similar to the ones in my Steyr.There is a video by Abntr4x4 where they show that cardan joints are used at the front axle and not homokinetic joints. They claim it is a double cardan joint, however, it doesn't look like one. It looks like a single caradan joint. That is unusual, as I found these kind of joints only with non-permanent 4x4's as the cardan joints output rotation does not have the same speed as the rotation input at a given point of time. That's why permanent 4x4x usualy have a homocinetic joint. Drive shafts which use two cardan joints are build in a way that the output part of the first cardan joint is 90 degree rotated to the output part of the second cardan joint to compensate that cardan error. The compensation is best, when both joints are bend at the same angle.
That's how it is done for drive shafts:
View attachment 7818850
But for me it looks like a single cardan joint which means, no compensation at all. If the cardan joint can't compensate its rotation speed variantions because the wheels have a good grip on the road, that means stress and wear in the joint because the cardan error is not just going away.
Universal joint - Wikipedia
Is that really the best choice?
Gruß
AWo
