Posted by Clint Dixon on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 4:38PM :
In Reply to: not to mention ground clearance? posted by chris case on Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 4:02PM :
I think you may be putting the cart befor the horse. It looks like to me that they had some reason to put the engine beside the driver. What reason, I can only guess, shorter overall length/reduced turning radius for city deliveries? I don't know. But by doing so, they were increasing the driveline angles. The simple solution appears to have been to raise the differential to reduce these angles. To do so, they came up with the idea of independant suspension. I doubt that they did this to improve ground clearance as a solid axle would have the same ground clearance wheather loaded or unloaded (assuming the tires did not squat too much). Ground clearance would not be much of an issue anyway in a vehicle designed for deliveries on city streets. I think driveline angles were the primary reason for the raised differential, hence independant suspension. The alternative - lowering the engine, which appears to be pretty low already. Or offsetting the differential like the POWER-WAGON. THAT is what I would have done! ;^)
Clint
Follow Ups: