lifting the suspension on my ML

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Stumpywayne

New Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
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1
Car
Mercedes ml 430
Well having been an avid fan of the landrover badge for many years and modding of that brand I have decided to turn my attention to my newly acquired ML 430 !! I sold my last ML which was a 270cdi and regretted it as it was the best tow car that I have used, easily towing my 2t off road competition car around the country with ease.
So back to my newly acquired 2000 plate ML 430 with only 87000 miles on the clock I think was a steal at £2000 !!! the only draw back I found with the ML is the lack of ground clearance once you leave the tarmac !!!
I have looked on the internet and seen it is possible to lift the ML using spacer blocks on the rear coilovers and cranking up the torsion bars on the front.
with that in mind I am now in the development stages of producing the lifting spacers along with a local engineering company once this has been done it will also allow for larger tyres to be fitted which should overall increase ground clearance dramatically.
Would like to have your thoughts on this and am I on the right forum for discussion of these sort of mods ?? the plan once I have developed these parts is to then design a front winch bumper !!!
 
Well having been an avid fan of the landrover badge for many years and modding of that brand I have decided to turn my attention to my newly acquired ML 430 !! I sold my last ML which was a 270cdi and regretted it as it was the best tow car that I have used, easily towing my 2t off road competition car around the country with ease.
So back to my newly acquired 2000 plate ML 430 with only 87000 miles on the clock I think was a steal at £2000 !!! the only draw back I found with the ML is the lack of ground clearance once you leave the tarmac !!!
I have looked on the internet and seen it is possible to lift the ML using spacer blocks on the rear coilovers and cranking up the torsion bars on the front.
with that in mind I am now in the development stages of producing the lifting spacers along with a local engineering company once this has been done it will also allow for larger tyres to be fitted which should overall increase ground clearance dramatically.
Would like to have your thoughts on this and am I on the right forum for discussion of these sort of mods ?? the plan once I have developed these parts is to then design a front winch bumper !!!

Not the same offroader but we have been doing this for years on pajeo/shoguns. The problem with cranking the torsion bars is it will wreck the geometry and put a lot of stress on the ball joints. We used ball joint spacers to get round the problem but your next problem will be the bump stops, mine was 90% off road so i just binned em but its not recommended on a daily driver. I did just cut them down a bit but it is a mot failure. Your next problem will be with how often you like changing cv boots and cv joints as the extra angle you will have them working at will wreck them.
I dropped the front diff to compensate but it was involved. I know it's a different truck but the problems will be the same...
While i think on, you would be better off with a longer rear brake line and new dampers longer to compensate for the lift off the spacers.
 
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