Undercarriage/Suspension/Driveline Pics

[Stu_Barnes]

     

I know this is a pre-production vehicle, but as everyone who has seen it in the flesh keeps saying, the spec is heavy duty. You can see the thickness of the multi link suspension components, the size of the diff casing, the uv joints (please provide greasing points INEOS no bearing is sealed for 'a long' life when you submerge it)

 

[Spjnr]

The greasable vs non greasable UJ argument is a hotly contested one. 

On the one hand, a greasable unit will have a longer service life, but only if its greased every 5k-10k miles, which they often aren't.

By general design, the sealed variants are stronger, as there's no grease holes running through, but as you mentioned, water ingress is an inevitability.

Personally I wouldn't be fussed by either choice, as I'll be regularly maintaining the grenadier, but also changing a UJ isn't a difficult job, so once a sealed one did go, a serviceable one could be installed. 

As for the rest of it, I'm very happy with the apparant build strength. It really seems like a vehicle thats been purposely over engineered, as opposed to the "just enough" philosophy that many OEMs go for now days. Hopefully it'll be a vehicle that, if looked after, Will last a very long time! 

 

[stickshifter]

Short video, and  a screen shot from the video of the undercarriage. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/4v9PV2KIgu8

 

[Stu_Barnes]

Now that looks like they’ve used a cv joint for the driveline which is reassuring. 

 

[stickshifter]

Do we know any details about the axles yet? I can tell the difference between a Dana 30, 44, and 60 just by looking at the size of the axle tubes, but I'm not used to looking at Carraro axles. I didn't know this, but Carraro axles are found in John Deere, Case, CNH, Caterpillar, JLG, Terex, Trak, Astec, New Holland, Gehl, Pettibone and Komatsu equipment. There are American companies, like Palmer Johnson Power Systems, who serve as Carraro dealers here in North America, and you can order parts through them. Its nice knowing that there is existing support, and that Carraro is no stranger to N.A.

The control arms are squared, as opposed to round tubes - just an observation.

The brackets for the control arms are very noticeable in video footage (maybe just because I'm over-analyzing), and we get a good look at them here in this screen shot. Maybe its also the rock sliders, but - between the control arm brackets, the 31-inch tires, and the rock sliders - it looks like the prototypes out testing have less ground clearance than what I was expecting, based on the computer-generated images that were on the Grenadier website back when they were rolling out all the "Building the Grenadier" videos.

On another topic - I finally sent in my reservation deposit! Now, of course, I am wishing I had done so back on September 30 when I first got the invite...