suspension

[RBMAN]

I have a 2021 Lariat and drove it on some gravel country roads. I hit some washboards or series of bumps in the road and they almost threw me off the road as my truck skewed sideways. Anyway, maybe the Ranger is lighter in weight of course than the F-150 I am used to driving, but maybe someone has a suggestion? I know maybe different shocks might be a solution?

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[Frenchy]

Due to the oh so wonderful shocks the Ranger has the ride isnt the greatest OffRoad. This has been covered in all sorts of thread including what you have described. Understanding that you want to fix this I am curious what your plans are for the truck? Are you wanting to keep it close to stock and still use it as a truck like it is intended? Are you wanting to make it I to an OffRoad rig for exploration? Or perhaps you just want it to be a fun street rod that will hit the dirt and gravel roads as needed? This is important to know to help give suggestions.

 

[TheBadger]

Brace yourself... tailgate damper recommendations are coming.

 

[RBMAN]

Due to the oh so wonderful shocks the Ranger has the ride isnt the greatest OffRoad. This has been covered in all sorts of thread including what you have described. Understanding that you want to fix this I am curious what your plans are for the truck? Are you wanting to keep it close to stock and still use it as a truck like it is intended? Are you wanting to make it I to an OffRoad rig for exploration? Or perhaps you just want it to be a fun street rod that will hit the dirt and gravel roads as needed? This is important to know to help give suggestions.

I just want to keep it as a fun street rod and still be able to navigate gravel roads at 60-70 mph as I am used to doing!

 

[RBMAN]

guess you found the limit and didnt put it into the weeds.
how fast were you going?

theres a limit to what stock suspension, tires and shocks can do.

Well I didn't have a limit in my F-150. I could travel at 60-70 mph+ and no problem keeping a straight line. The Ranger gets a little squirrley at 50 mph on the washboard road. Just wondering if anyone had this experience and what the fix might be?

 

[Trigganometry]

1st, 4 shocks
2nd tires
3rd rear sway bar

Stomp it! ??

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I have a 2021 Lariat and drove it on some gravel country roads. I hit some washboards or series of bumps in the road and they almost threw me off the road as my truck skewed sideways. Anyway, maybe the Ranger is lighter in weight of course than the F-150 I am used to driving, but maybe someone has a suggestion? I know maybe different shocks might be a solution?

Hi Richard,

You experienced a condition called skate/dart. It can be unnerving. What happened was the washboards caused a rear suspension resonance which kicked the ass end out. Pretty much any vehicle at the resonance speed will do such. you can move this speed with different tuning of the rear shocks, but it might come as a trade off of ride quality. When I encountered this in the past, I put my boot into the gas pedal and increased the speed to get out of the resonance...

We had a section of test track with 2" and another one of 4" sine waves...great place to help tune the shocks... or other things like the steering column resonance...

Best,
Phil

 

[RBMAN]

Hi Richard,

You experienced a condition called skate/dart. It can be unnerving. What happened was the washboards caused a rear suspension resonance which kicked the ass end out. Pretty much any vehicle at the resonance speed will do such. you can move this speed with different tuning of the rear shocks, but it might come as a trade off of ride quality. When I encountered this in the past, I put my boot into the gas pedal and increased the speed to get out of the resonance...

We had a section of test track with 2" and another one of 4" sine waves...great place to help tune the shocks... or other things like the steering column resonance...

Best,
Phil

ok, sounds like good advice, but can I tune factory shocks?

 

[P. A. Schilke]

ok, sounds like good advice, but can I tune factory shocks?

Hi Richard,

Factory Shocks have no adjustment....

best,
Phil

 

[HotShotOffroad]

As some have mentioned; the OEM shocks on these trucks were nothing to brag home about. And since they cannot be adjusted at all you are stuck with the feel of them unless you swap them out. Although I dont recommend doing 60-70 on gravel roads most of the time, You can still get a better feel all around by swapping the shocks, get better tires (stock ones are horrible) and adding a rear sway bar. The shocks you can adjust to your liking (pending you get adjustable ones), the tires are pretty self explanatory on why to swap them out, and the sway bar helps keep that back end from kicking out on you. Hope this helps.

 

[TerraMechE]

and the sway bar helps keep that back end from kicking out on you. Hope this helps.

Are you implying that increasing rear roll stiffness will reduce a tendency toward oversteer?

 

[HotShotOffroad]

Are you implying that increasing rear roll stiffness will reduce a tendency toward oversteer?
[/QUOTE


Essentially. Yes. Rear sway bars help create stiffness which will in treduce the role on the backend of trucks. Personally I’ve only seen this truck struggle when it comes to slippery conditions like snow ice or gravel, but that’s expected on any rear wheel drive vehicle.

We have a sway bar that we will be adding in the coming week or two pending on the schedule to help see the difference on this truck specifically and it’s roll when driving. But I’ve ran a swaybar on multiple trucks and always noticed a difference and it helped.

the negative to adding a sway bar though is the flex when doing trails or larger rocks and obstacles. You lose some of the flex on the back end when you add the stiffer set up.

 

[TerraMechE]

@HotShotOffroad normally, I'd tend to disagree with the idea that adding a rear anti-roll bar would REDUCE oversteer, but for some reason I can't help but entertain this thought.

Maybe one way a rear anti-roll bar would help this situation the OP mentions is if the skitteryness and "stepping out" is caused by an axle tramp (the left and right sides hopping out of phase relative to one another) resonance. The rear ARB would only help if the shift in "tramp resonant frequency" is enough to keep it well higher than the "input frequency" of the washboards AND the shift in roll stiffness bias isn't enough to make the truck an oversteery handful. I suppose the soft inboard mounted dampers aren't really helping to damp axle tramp, either...

But... I'm wrong a lot. @P. A. Schilke how does that grab you?

Either way, running dirt roads in 4hi or going slower or faster might be easier to try before OP gets out the parts cannon. (don't get me wrong, I love screwing with thoughtfully engineered stuff)

 

[HotShotOffroad]

@HotShotOffroad normally, I'd tend to disagree with the idea that adding a rear anti-roll bar would REDUCE oversteer, but for some reason I can't help but entertain this thought.

Maybe one way a rear anti-roll bar would help this situation the OP mentions is if the skitteryness and "stepping out" is caused by an axle tramp (the left and right sides hopping out of phase relative to one another) resonance. The rear ARB would only help if the shift in "tramp resonant frequency" is enough to keep it well higher than the "input frequency" of the washboards AND the shift in roll stiffness bias isn't enough to make the truck an oversteery handful. I suppose the soft inboard mounted dampers aren't really helping to damp axle tramp, either...

But... I'm wrong a lot. @P. A. Schilke how does that grab you?

Either way, running dirt roads in 4hi or going slower or faster might be easier to try before OP gets out the parts cannon. (don't get me wrong, I love screwing with thoughtfully engineered stuff)

I do not disagree with anything mentioned. Especially the statement of going slower lol

What im essentially stating is that rear sway bars add stiffness to the rear. This in turn may help slow the rate of the kick out on the back end, but really it’s designed more to slow the roll and not necessarily the kick out.

Personal opinion swapping tires and Adjusting suspension is the better answer. Rear sway bars actually help these trucks more with heavier Loads and reducing the roll from that additional weight. But it can help some with no added weight and the rear roll.

I’ll be honest; sway bars are not normally a subject of conversation when it comes to mid size trucks. Back in my car days it was a higher subject spoken on.

Due to the fact I have not yet installed the sway bar on this build, I cannot confirm of it helps at all. In theory it could. But it’s not what I would state as the primary fix in this situation. So OP please take all of this as a possible assistance on your issue, but not the final step or answer.

 

[TerraMechE]

@HotShotOffroad fair

@P. A. Schilke I think my theory is shit anyways... The bar stiffness will change stuff a bit, but tire stiffness is the main driver for shifting hop/tramp frequencies (I'm guessing washboards are more driven by wheel hop, but I don't know for sure)

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