THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

I had a rocket ship experiment when I hit a significant perpendicular rut in sand at about 30 mile per hour. It launched the truck, bringing enough front impact force that it knocked te front doors out of alignment.

Looking at the front of the truck, I see more camber than I've noticed before. It leans slightly
out from the bottom of the tires, though both are identical. I could be imagining things, but if I'm not, where should I look for issues? The spring cups?

Did you put a hole in your springs cups from bottoming out? They do rust out
And you need to read what I just posted in Berger's thread.

Message received on speed. This was on a beach road in Corolla NC designed for 35 mph. The toyota pickup and jeep in our crew did fine with the rut, looks like the Pinz took the damage.

Please take a look at the images here: https://plus.google.com/photos/10261431 ... ODrg5GX6wE

The left appears to have a cracked centering ring. I felt inside the cups and do not feel anything broken. Is it possible to have bent the axle itself?

does not look that far out of tolerance. You do have more weight in the front that the average 712.

some have made up spacers to make the alignment pin longer which makes the tires set up straight. Stan or Mark have done these and would know more about what it takes.

The cups are more susceptible to failing on the top where water and mud get trapped and rust out.

here is mine showing tires leaning in. This is from lower tire pressure (what is your pressure now since you said you were playing on the beach)

Hmm, doesn't look very far off compared to your image. What would bend from landing the front? The cups are solid, spring isn't bent. Is it possible to bend the axle? The truck runs fine still with the front lockers locked.

Its that weight up front that bent the nose down. I was able to pull the uprights back enough to close the gap at the door bottoms, but the latch is still off significantly. There is over an inch of room at the rear lower corner of the door and too much space between the latch and he door. Looks like i will need to take her to a colision shop.

Should I be concerned about the cracked centering ring?

Tire pressure is back up to road specs.


Thanks!

a unibody shop should be able to get it back to spec.

I have seen several of the rings cracked, one of mine has been cracked since I got it in jan of 04 with no change.

there is really no way to bend the axle housings without causing massive damage somewhere else.

the first time I had my tub go out of spec was at Glamis (sand dunes in CA) driving a little fast and came up on a 4' drop, only real option was to just take it as braking surely would have caused way more damage. I was able to get the doors to realign although not as good as before. I had to release the air tunnel welds, move the nose and reweld the tunnel to the tub. Not as big a deal as it sounds.

Tell me more about the gap at the door. Is it as you look at it from the side or is the gap at the door seal? a picture would be great.

Hey brian M, shoot me a pm. I appreciate your note but couldn't respond through google.

I have recently developed the same problem, but my doors are perfectly aligned. Nothing seems broken or out of whack. Still runs and drives fine, but its driving me nuts. Looks just like the pic of the Pinz with the aired down tires. I'm hoping I just need new springs?

Took it to a collision shop. Quoted me $250 and said they can take care of a few other blemishes left over from its pre-purchase roll over. We will see how well it looks when i pick it up this week.

In regards to the lean, I still havnt discovered what has changed. Everything looks fine. I plan on getting it up in the air this weekend.

Might be a little late for me to chime in here.

I don't think that you have bent your axle. I do a lot of rally racing in my Pinzgauer over here in Europe. Racing for me means 60 mph+ through really rough tracks. Sometimes you just do not see a bump or a combination of bumps and take them at very high speed.

One thing I can tell you is that Pinzgauer Axles are very strong. The first things that bend is the steel wheels. I managed to bend them as I hit a 10 inches high step at about 50 mph (I didn't see it because of a shadow). The resulting launch in the air and the impact a moment later was so hard that my windshield glass broke.


As long as you hit the ground as the axle was designed to (impact force comes from below) nothing will happen. A different thing is when the impact force comes from the front. Then the first thing to bend is the axle tube that comes out of the diff housing. The bend will not be upwards. It will be backwards. Even if it is easier to bend it that way it still requires a lot of force to do so.

Another thing that kills Pinzgauer axles is jumping with wheels that have a larger offset than stock. You still will not bend the axle but break the aluminium front axle portal housing because of stress to the lower steering pivot pin. With stock wheels the Pinzgauer is designed so that the lower pin only has to withstand forces that are in direction with the pin axis and only minor shearing forces. As you increase offset you also increase shear forces to this pin drastically. It is not a problem with normal street and offroad use though.


I would check your front Coil Springs as they might just be bad. It is a very common problem especially when your
front axle load is higher than stock. (I have to change springs every race ) New stock petrol Pinz springs last about 3-4 days.
TD Springs last a lot longer.


Other than that the broken centering ring is nothing to worry about. They do break from time to time.

Regards Richard

Thanks for the response Richard!

Springs are good. What i found were severely bent inner tie rod ends, one forward, one back. I will swap em out and see how that changes the appearance.

That might be the solution to your problem. You can try that out easily.

Just search an empty parking lot and have someone let the truck drive slowly forward for a 20 yds and then backwards the same
distance again. If you see the truck change camber you know that your alignment is off.

When your front end is going down during forward motion and going up during rearward motion you have too much toe out.
If it is exactly the opposite you have excessive toe in.


If this is not the case your springs are shot.

By the way how do you know that the springs are good? You can't see it just by looking at them they do not
break or crack they just get soft so the front end sits lower.


Richard

Ohhhhhhh

Did not know that on the springs! I was looking for a broken spring and thought I was ok. That's not good news and good news all in the same time.

How can I trust a used set of springs?