Forum:
Hi all, i lifted me f70 a bit more with dogsbosses shackles, there good got no problems as such, but has anyone lengthened the panhard rod on these before? ive got a spare rod which i will play with cos what i have found is that the rod isnt long enough and it locks up the front suspension a bit cos its trying to force the axle out of line from the front and rear spring hangers/shackles. I can lengthen my rod - ha ha, no probs but wondered how it would affect the mot - this is the main concern do they mind you cutting and sleeving these parts of a vehicle, this is what i must know so i can really get it articulating well!!! thanks if anyone can help!! 
Lenghten Your Rod
Make an adjustable rod, to do this cut the rod approximately 1/4 of the way from the top; using a lathe, make a collar 10" (250mm)long. Bore the first 6" (150mm) and tap a thread of 20mm minimum into this.
Bore the remaining 4" (100mm) to be a snug fit over the 3'4 length, weld this on.
Turn, or tap a 20mm thread onto the remaining 1/4, this is screwed into the female collar, shorten back the male thread if necessary, put a lock nut onto the male section, grease with copper grease and screw the two together, adjust to length, leaving a minimum of 2" (50mm) of thread into the female. Cover the threaded portion with heat shrink tubing, or tape to keep out dirt and debris.
Why mod your rod?
Hi Neil, read your post this morning, thanks very much for the positive comments on the shackles. With regard to your problem I just wanted to point out that even if you lengthen the rod the angles at each end of the rod will still be increased with each inch of lift and so the arc in which the rod operates will be ever more acute moving the axle further side to side in relation to the suspension moving the axle up and down. Ideally the rod and steering drag link need to be lowered by the same amount as the lift at the chassis sothat the pair of them are as horizontal as poss when the car is at rest on a flat surface. It may be possible to source a pitman arm with more drop using toyota parts as the steering boxes on both products are from the same company and it would be a simple job to fabricate a dropped mount for the panhard rod. As we discussed on the phone the other day I have never come across another leaf sprung four wheel drive with a panhard rod and I'm sure this was fitted to the fourtrack, along with the anti roll bar, simply to improve on road handling at the expense of a little off road ability so I decided to try my car without the rod in place, I have just finished removing it which meant cutting out the top bolt as the metal sleeve in the bush had fused onto it, no suprise there then. Straight away I have a good two to three inches more movement when cross axled up two ramps on opposing corner wheels. I will let you know in a couple of days how much difference there is to the handling on the road.
With regard to the MOT, apart from specific requirements such as brakes and emmissions etc, the testers only have to report on components actually in place on the car, I have removed the anti roll bars from the all of the leaf sprung 4x4's I have owned and this point has never been raised at MOT, when I came to put my wife's independant through it's MOT in July one of the front anti roll bar mounts had sheared so I simply took it off and the car passed the test no problem, obviously it will affect the handling slightly and it is up to the driver/wife to drive accordingly but it hasn't increased body roll noticably as the rear one is still working however it has definately improved the cars ability offroad. If you do decide to cut and sleeve the rod you could simply remove it for the MOT. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Dave.