Soften ride

[Grey owl]

Third that….

Some progressive springs in the front with bilstein shocks would be a noticeably better ride. If you have a healthier budget, Duff arms with a front sway bar would be about the best ride you can get. It would feel like butter.

The rear is more difficult because of the unknown weight or use. Roll cage, heavy rear bumper, tire carrier, hard top, passengers, etc impact the flex of the rear leaf and what youat should get. Plus my rear rides hard so I’m not giving advice. lol.


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I never have anything in the back, no spare tire carrier stock bumper. Its not a comfortable ride at all, almost like its got no spring at all. Why the Bilstien shocks ? Whst makes them better?

 

[ntsqd]

Bilstein, Fox, King, Icon, and a few others use a stack of successively reducing diameter, thin stainless deflecting discs for both the compression and the rebound valving. This makes them have variable damping based on the shaft speed of the shock. Hit a small bump and the shaft doesn't move very fast giving maximum damping. Hit a large bump and the shaft moves a lot faster giving softer valving so that the hit isn't as jarring.

Putting my first set of Bilstein 5100's on my old yota 4wd truck was transformative. They made a truck that was a pretty average dirt performer (w/ Rancho 5000's on it) into a truck that I could use to chase down desert racers while supporting them during a race. Granted, the roads that I was on were not as rough as the race course, but prior to putting the Bilsteins on the truck I just couldn't drive it that fast on those roads. I am convinced that one root cause of the common admonishment to air down when in the dirt is because of the shocks that were available then. I very rarely ever air down, and when I do it is extremely rare that I drop more than 10 psi. For where I go and in the conditions that I go there in, airing down just isn't needed very often. Prior to putting the Bilstiens on that truck I aired down at the sight of dirt.

The trickle-down is that the average truck can greatly benefit from this type of damper, but some are perfectly happy with the old twin-tube shock design.

 

[Grey owl]

Bilstein, Fox, King, Icon, and a few others use a stack of successively reducing diameter, thin stainless deflecting discs for both the compression and the rebound valving. This makes them have variable damping based on the shaft speed of the shock. Hit a small bump and the shaft doesn't move very fast giving maximum damping. Hit a large bump and the shaft moves a lot faster giving softer valving so that the hit isn't as jarring.

Putting my first set of Bilstein 5100's on my old yota 4wd truck was transformative. They made a truck that was a pretty average dirt performer (w/ Rancho 5000's on it) into a truck that I could use to chase down desert racers while supporting them during a race. Granted, the roads that I was on were not as rough as the race course, but prior to putting the Bilsteins on the truck I just couldn't drive it that fast on those roads. I am convinced that one root cause of the common admonishment to air down when in the dirt is because of the shocks that were available then. I very rarely ever air down, and when I do it is extremely rare that I drop more than 10 psi For where I go and in the conditions that I go there in, airing down just isn't needed very often. Prior to putting the Bilstiens on that truck I aired down at the sight of dirt.

The trickle-down is that the average truck can greatly benefit from this type of damper, but some are perfectly happy with the old twin-tube shock design.

Thank you i will certainly try this technology on my 1969 bronco. I really want to smoothen the ride. I think I will alsl add a front sway bar.

 

[ntsqd]

Adding a sway-bar will only level out the body in high(er) speed corners. It does nothing for ride quality and can be a very slight hindrance due to it adding some friction to the suspension.

 

[MarsChariot]

But if you put Bilsteins on you will need the sway bar. Those shocks are super bouncey and wallow a lot in my opinion. Maybe they work well with stiff springs or something. BUt with progressive coils and soft rear leaves it is uncontrollable without sway bars.

 

[ntsqd]

I disagree, if the damping is set correctly you won't need sway-bar(s) to control any 'wallow'. If the damping is set incorrectly, then you're using sway-bars as a band-aid and not actually fixing the problem.

However, you're not the first to say that Bilsteins on the front are too soft. This is easily true of a 5100 and a 7100 because the upper limit of their damping sits right on the edge of buckling their 14mm shaft. Can go with stiffer valving in a damper with a larger shaft diameter. Fox offers their 2" bodied shocks with a 5/8" shaft, and that is enough stronger that one shock per tire can have damping in it that won't risk bending the shock-shaft.

If all you do is street driving and you don't push it, then a single 510 or 7100 up front will work fine. If you do push it then you either need dual Bilsteins per tire or the single Fox up front. I don't know if any of the Bronco vendors sell Fox dampers. If there are not any, then I'd buy them from Accutune.com as that is the best way to get the correct damping in the shocks.

Once the damping is correct, then if the body leans too much for comfort in corners a sway-bar is the correct thing to add. Run the softest sway-bar that will do the job. The axle with the least corning traction is the axle with the stiffest sway-bar.

 

[DC_Gearhead]

I have progressives Duff springs in the front and 5100 Bilsteins. I didn’t have a sway bar for a long time. Rode nice before but on corners the soft shocks made it lean. After getting the sway bar it was amazing. No lean and soft ride…..in the front. Still working on fine tuning my rear. Rides a little hard. I have 3” suspension lift and 1.5” body lift.

Love my combo in the front.


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[ntsqd]

Damping only controls the speed at which the lean happens, it does not control how far the lean can go. That is the job of the combined spring rate (suspension spring rate + sway-bar spring rate).

 

[Broncobowsher]

I have progressives Duff springs in the front and 5100 Bilsteins. I didn’t have a sway bar for a long time. Rode nice before but on corners the soft shocks made it lean. After getting the sway bar it was amazing. No lean and soft ride…..in the front. Still working on fine tuning my rear. Rides a little hard. I have 3” suspension lift and 1.5” body lift.

Love my combo in the front.


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The only way a shock can prevent lean is if it is locked up solid. A properly installed shock does not limit normal suspension stroke, just controls the speed it can happen. A stiff shock can slow down the rate that body roll happens. On a snap input it can control momentum which could potentially limit a tiny amount of body roll as the inertia exceeds the springs normal loading.

I ran soft springs. The body roll was excessive. But still drivable. It was only after driving normal vehicles for a while that I realized how much body roll I would get in simple turns and going through traffic circles. The big issue I had was hard throttle in a turn. The rear would roll while the front unloaded. This would lift the inside front tire in a turn. Not a little either, when it settled down, it was like an airplane tire landing. Chirp as it came up to speed, shake in the wheel as it put forces into the steering.

 

[MarsChariot]

Here's the deal. I have been driving Broncos for 50 years now and never had a bouncy and leaning drive until now. The 76 has the same lift, and same suspension but with old ProComp shocks. It drives and controls the best of any Bronco I have driven. The only difference is the 76 has 33s whereas the 71 has 30s. I can only assume that Bilsteins work great with larger tires. For uncuts with 30s, maybe some other shock is better.

 

[ntsqd]

If it is bouncy and leans too rapidly for your liking then maybe it does need a sway-bar, but first you should get the damping tuned correctly because it clearly is not. It sounds like it is badly out of tune at that. Only after tuning the damping should a sway-bar be considered.

 

[Grey owl]

Deflective disc valved dampers are the best way to go. Fox used to get kudos for their small bump ride quality being better than Bilstein, King, FOA, etc. No idea if the others have caught up or not.

Best rear ride is going to come from air-gapped leafs. The only mfg of any type that I know of offering that is GM so you'll have to make that mod yourself. Pretty simple to do if the springs have tip sliders. This mod will increase the desired damping specs in the rear dampers. In Bilstein numbers their default shim stack for a leaf spring is the 255/70. With air-gapped springs I's start with their 275/78 shim stack.

Does having the stock ford air bag in the front spring contribute to the rough ride?

 

[DirtDonk]

Yes.
But by “stock“ I don’t think any of them were ever installed at the factory. They were either dealer installed options, or installed later by owners.
I think…

My 71 had bags in the coils, and unless they were completely empty, I’m pretty sure they affected the ride quality. Stock springs weren’t that smooth anyway.
But you weren’t supposed to run them empty, because it would deteriorate the bag quickly. So running with 5 or 10 pounds in them, would definitely make the ride stiffer.

Modern variable rate coil springs are far superior in street comfort, to the old springs.
Especially those equipped with airbags.

 

[ntsqd]

Far from anything remotely resembling an expert on EB's, but I'd never heard of factory installed air springs in any Bronco.

Air springs of any sort have two fundamental problems. Their spring rate changes with air temperature. Not ambient, but the temperature of the air in the bag, shock, whatever. This is due to warm air expanding and in a confined space that increases the pressure. Imagine what the air temperature is after a fast run down a wash-board road!

And they tend to have a rapidly rising rate. Meaning that the spring rate increases faster than desirable as the suspension is compressed. Using pure nitrogen can reduce this to some degree, but it's still there and still a problem.

I'm going to guess that parts like ORI's mitigate some of this by not having a lot of air volume. Less air volume per total volume, less pressure change with temperature change, but the rate of the rising rate is inescapable.

 

[Broncobowsher]

Airbags in the coils should not really change the basic ride. They can alter it, but not that much. Unless you are trying to use them to get lift and have the pressure cranked way up. But if original I doubt they would take that kind of abuse. We are talking about 50 year old rubber here.

I thought there was a snow plow prep package that might have them. Don't think they left the line with them, maybe a box in the back the dealer installed.

 

[ntsqd]

They do increase the spring rate, otherwise why bother. That should have some negative effect on the ride quality.

 

[bigmuddy]

Yes.
But by “stock“ I don’t think any of them were ever installed at the factory. They were either dealer installed options, or installed later by owners.
I think…

My 71 had bags in the coils, and unless they were completely empty, I’m pretty sure they affected the ride quality. Stock springs weren’t that smooth anyway.
But you weren’t supposed to run them empty, because it would deteriorate the bag quickly. So running with 5 or 10 pounds in them, would definitely make the ride stiffer.

Modern variable rate coil springs are far superior in street comfort, to the old springs.
Especially those equipped with airbags.

In agreement here with the bags being an aftermarket or dealer supplied item. I do recall them being sold way back when in several 4x4 rags as aftermarket.

I can't for the life of me imagine why one would need an added bag with how stiff the stock coils and even the aftermarket coils of the day. Maybe a snowplow but that would be the only reason I could think of?

 

[Oldtimer]

Don't think they left the line with them, maybe a box in the back the dealer installed.

Accessory kit, so most likely dealer install.

NOS Coil Spring Load Assist Air Bag Set. C6TZ-5A589-A. 1966-1977 Bronco.

NOS Coil Spring Load Assist Air Bag Set. C6TZ-5A589-A. 1966-1977 Bronco. 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 EARLY FORD

www.northeastclassicfordparts.com

 

[Grey owl]

Yes.
But by “stock“ I don’t think any of them were ever installed at the factory. They were either dealer installed options, or installed later by owners.
I think…

My 71 had bags in the coils, and unless they were completely empty, I’m pretty sure they affected the ride quality. Stock springs weren’t that smooth anyway.
But you weren’t supposed to run them empty, because it would deteriorate the bag quickly. So running with 5 or 10 pounds in them, would definitely make the ride stiffer.
⁴⅚⁴
Modern variable rate coil springs are far superior in street comfort, to the old springs.
Especially those equipped with airbags.

I never have anything in the back, no spare tire carrier stock bumper. Its not a comfortable ride at all, almost like its got no spring at all. Why the Bilstien shocks ? Whst makes them better?

Thanks guys terrific information i am going to start off with the sky tracker progressives with the Billstienes From there i will decide on the sway bar The next challenge will be what to do in the rear. Right now i have original 5 pack leafs and sky jacker shocks the ride is horrible. It feels like its ridgid with very little travel. I have 2inch blocks and two inch shock extensions and the ride is horrible.. Hopefully some out there has the magic bullet set up for a soft ride

 

[ntsqd]

Can not think of the front axle and the rear axle as separate systems. What happens at one axle effects the other axle. Have to think of, and work with both axles as a whole system.

I would buy all of the springs and possibly the shocks too, from a Bronco specific vendor rather one of the big brand suspension lift companies. A Bronco vendor has a better idea of what works best on a Bronco. They also can respond faster to new innovations and market trends, so their products are going to better than products from a big company.
My own loyalty, which they have earned, is to Wild Horses. Their progressive rate front springs have set the high water mark for Bronco specific front springs and their work with Deaver Spring redefined Bronco rear springs.