Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

My spacers from Uys arrived this morning. I had some free time and two hours later Paddatjie was back on her wheels with the spacers installed and the wheel alignment done.

The installation of the spacers is actually very easy. To install the front ones you have to remove the battery box on the left side and the air box on the right. With the wheels removed undo the bottom shock bolt and remove. Then undo the two upper control arm bolts and remove. Compress the spring with a spring compressor. Undo the 3 nuts that holds the top of the strut in place. Now simply remove the complete strut assembly. Bolt the spacer onto the strut and replace all the parts in the reverse order.

In the back its even easier. Remove the wheel. support the lower control arm on a trolly jack. Remove the bolt that holds the shock to the lower control arm. Remove the bolt holding the stub axle assy to the lower control arm. Now lower the control arm until the spring comes out. Place the spacer on top to the spring and do the reverse to re-assemble.

Last step is to do the wheel alignment. The camber adjusters will almost max out with the spacers in place, but they work. I was concerned that we would have to machine new adjusters with more cam lift, but the standard units works fine.

My Pajaro is driven off road 80% of the time and therefor we decoded to run it with less than standard toe. This setting will improve 4x4 driving, but reduce on-road handling. Since I will be fitting proper off road tires I will in any case not be able to exceed 140km/hour which is the max that these tires can handle, so the toe setting will be fine for me.

My settings are:

Front:
Cross camber: 0°15’
Cross castor: 0°16’
Cross SAI: 0°30’
Total toe: 0°05’

Rear:
Cross camber: -0°09’
Total toe: 0°12’
Thrust angle: 0°01’

Total lift:
Front: 50mm
Rear: 54mm

Distance from centre of wheel to wheel arch: 570mm front & back.

Now I can't wait for my 265/70-17 Cooper SST's to arrive later this week! Sunday's rocks are calling me back. Wonder how the extra 50+mm and the new tires will perform there? Ag- well, have to wait for the weekend to play...

Hi Andre,

Thank you for a brief but thorough report. I have been wanting to do the same for some time, but have just been too chicken! It seems that the lift was quick and painless, and your paj looks good.

Could you tell me which spacers you ordered from Uys? Think i will be doing the same as soon as possible now

Regards
Kobus

I got the 25mm front spacers for the front and the 21mm spacers for the back. The 35mm spacers will only make the suspension harder and you will definitely have a big problem to sort out the wheel alignment.

On mine we had to go max setting on the camber cams. Anything more and we would have been forced to manufacture new camber cams with a higher ratio.

Afterwards the suspension feels almost the same except for the fact that the CG (center of gravity) has moved upwards resulting in more body roll. This is not a problem for me, but it can be dangerous at excessively high speeds. THIS IS A OFF-ROAD USE MODIFICATION! In standard trim the vehicle is perfectly balanced for road use and the CG is low enough to prevent high speed roll overs.

If I do decide to lift her more I would do a sub frame lift, but that's a massive job if you want to do it right. This will keep the SG more or less where it is, but move the body upwards, out of harms way.

But then, she's my long distance travel vehicle not my challenge vehicle. For travel its all about safety and reliability, for 4 x 4 challenge it all about beating a single obstacle and if you roll over or break something thats just part of the fun...

Good luck with the mod.

Hi Andre

I am hopefully getting the same size set of spacers as you fitted from CATS as they did not work with his setup, giving a approx 50mm overall lift.

Did you fit them yourself, or at a fitment centre? I am keen to do the fitment, as I am fairly technicaly minded, and then just have the alignment done afterwards?? You said you used a spring compressor to compress the front strut to fit the spacer, surely one could just remove the strut as is and bolt the spacer ontop and refit??

Hi Nick, we did the installation at my own workshop. We compressed the spring to make the job easier, but yes you should be able to get it out without a compressor if you have to. The wheel alignment was outsourced, but one of my people took the car and checked that they adjust according to my specifications which is different form the standard factory specification.

For a technically inclined DIY (sorry, lack of better description) person this job should not be too difficult as long as you have all the basic tools. To be fair, maybe allow one hour per wheel for the job.

Andre

Maybe I missed it, but did you do this lift with the STD OEM shocks?

Also, you get a 50mm lift from a 25mm spacer? Sorry, but maybe I am missing something here?

Kaiv, there's a leveraging effect due to the way the suspension works. It's about double at the front and more than double at the rear.

Andre, I'm interested to hear about the coopers you want to put on. Please give your experience of the 265/70-17s, I'm only about a year away from changing, but I'm also keen to up on tyre size.

Yes, the 25mm spacer in the front and the 21 in the back gave me 50 and 54mm respectively on the standard factory coils and shocks.
I will be fitting the Coopers on Friday when I get back from Cape Town. Will post some pictures and more importantly my experience of those tires with the suspension lift.