Wheel hop, axle wrap...

[TwinStick]

Well, I played in the snow on the way home from work & locked the lockers & dis connected the sway (like i do every time I drive the truck to work.) Wicked axle hop in 2wd, 4wd Hi & 4wd Lo. In 4 Lo, it went away if i left it in 1st gear (no throttle at all) & let the truck drive itself. Also went away in 5th gear Lo but felt like the truck was gonna break getting to 5th gear. Sad, pathetic & flat out shameful for the engineers of this vehicle. My daughters Subaru Crosstrek has easily went into snow this deep & deeper, stopped & started with no drama what so ever. Tonight, I was in less than 12" of snow.

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To shame

[Reloaderguy]

Wheel hop is usually caused by changing pinion angle, poorly designed geometry, or incorrect shock valving / insufficient dampening. Tires, traction, and driving surface just conceals or exaggerates the condition. My guess is you have all three problems; large rubber bushings, unequal length control arms, cheap shocks.

[TwinStick]

Carli control arms with no rubber bushings, factory ride height, factory Bilstein shocks, stock size Cooper STT's @ 60 psi. 40k niles.

[adeluca73]

Wheel hop is usually caused by changing pinion angle, poorly designed geometry, or incorrect shock valving / insufficient dampening. Tires, traction, and driving surface just conceals or exaggerates the condition. My guess is you have all three problems; large rubber bushings, unequal length control arms, cheap shocks.

Specifically, the problem is contact patch duration, under rapid acceleration from rest or a slow roll, the instant center shifts away from the vehicle CG, track bars or control arms resist this change, and it works in RWD muscle cars, 8K# trucks w/ 410HP...not so much. Shock wear & tire pressure can really help/hurt hop. Under rapid acceleration from rest, the tires have 100% effective contact patch, and the normal force is perpendicular to the contact patch, then the tires move slightly forward in the wheel well, the tires normal force isn't 100% perpendicular, tire toe angle dynamically changes, tires loose some traction, then the onset of slip, followed rapidly by spin, the resultant angular acceleration decreases, especially if there's a limited slip type diff, which corresponds to a decrease in linear car acceleration, which restores the static toe angle, the wheel moves back to its static center, & you feel hop, wash/rinse/repeat several dozen times a minute.
Tire pressure & stiffer suspension bushings (very hard, stiff polyurethane) can help reduce this, the key is to reduce wheel movement w/ respect to the frame.

[TwinStick]

A random thought: It is pretty sad when a truck with a mall-crawler lift, stiff springs & stiff shocks, can go more places in sand & snow than a Power Wagon. Just sayin'.

[usmc369]

Speak for yourself, I dont have a problem with either sand or snow and helped a "mallcrawler" get out of the outer banks sand last October.

[Limamikemike]

It's been said before airing down mitigates the axle hop, you can't expect to go into deep sand at 60psi and expect it to not hop. And I have one of the rear linked supposedly poserwagons. Get a Arb or staun deflator and a portable compressor and you're good to go.

[usmc369]

You can do a search on google and youll find thousands of posts from ford to chevy about this same thing running on the beach and in snow with d or e rated tires. Everyone one of them came to the same conclusion air down to 20 or below. BTW, those who say "poserwagon" are jealous that they have such little axles.

[TrueBlue13PW]

Yeah my 2013 with leaf springs doesn't have any issue in snow. Haven't been in deep sand but have been in plenty of snow and deep snow. I have no axle wrap or wheel hop. I'm running Goodyear Duratrac 35's. Heck most of the time on the roads around here unless it's a foot or more I just play around in 2wd only switching to 4wd when needed.

[Reloaderguy]

You can do a search on google and youll find thousands of posts from ford to chevy about this same thing running on the beach and in snow with d or e rated tires. Everyone one of them came to the same conclusion air down to 20 or below. BTW, those who say "poserwagon" are jealous that they have such little axles.

It's hard to trouble shoot via a message board but my experience has always been to reduce wheel hop first check your tire pressure (usually too much) then check your shocks. Factory shocks are junk and just because these are 3/4 tons doesn't mean they are even remotely heavy enough to warrant max PSI.

Unless you're willing to cut off the factory suspension mounts and build your own 3/4/5-link you're pretty well limited in the variables you can change; tires (size, type, brand, etc), air pressure, shocks, and springs. Admittedly I don't have a ton of experience with the Power Wagon but the principles should hold from one platform to another.

[nts007]

The pw stock bilstein monotone shocks arnt the worst in the world. Far better than most stock setups. Maybe only the rapturd beats it with its fox shocks. It's an inherent solid axle flaw. The best ways to fix it the factory feels is either not worth it or they don't care as long as the ride is good and you have warranty. Lots of ways to mitigate wheel hop and axle wrap. But pw owners are looking for something that isn't a universal bolt on solution that limits the trucks abilities. I get little bits of hop in 2wd at low throttle in snow. But not enough to shake my teeth. No worse than our crappy highways.

[TwinStick]

But pw owners are looking for something that isn't a universal bolt on solution that limits the trucks abilities.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Yup, this. Lets be honest, is it or is it not, a royal PITA to air down & up again, every single day/time that you go hunting or exploring ? Can we do it-yes. Does it get old quick-yes. I'm just sayin'.

I know i'm not the only one thinking this either. Chime back in when you are pushing 60 & have health issues. It really does get old quick. Plus, on a stock truck, you need every bit of ground clearance you can get. Airing down only makes that particular problem worse. I guess i just feel for $50-$65k, the factory could do better. Maybe i am wrong.

Just sayin'.

[TrueBlue13PW]

I don't air down and air up all the time. I run 35 to 40 psi in my 50 psi duratracs and go through snow like it's not there. I don't have a TPMS waring either because I had my dealership reset the parameters.

[MoparToYou]

This thread was started about 2014+ rear suspensions, which are different from your 2013.

[TrueBlue13PW]

This thread was started about 2014+ rear suspensions, which are different from your 2013.

I'm fully aware of the differences in my 2013 and the 2014 and up trucks. The thread has had discussion about other trucks even experiences from a diesel owner with power wagon springs. I was replying to the rant of twin stick. I don't have the issues he is having and wanted to post my experience. Maybe a lower psi tire helps the situation. This forum is here for us to help each other and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our trucks. Threads do that the morph and take on a life of their own. Like a thread I started about hemi fever tuning it's taken on a life of it's own but I don't care because some of the tangents it's taken has been some insightful information. Sometimes it's the tangents and random information that sparks and idea that helps everyone out.

[TrueCowboy426]

Unfortunately axle hop is just the nature of the beast. The tires gripping, slipping, gripping, slipping really quickly combined with the wrap and soft suspension that our trucks have all lead to this condition. I have axle hop/wrap in all the vehicles I own. I'm my PW I can get wicked hop to the point it will move my rear view mirror, but my method of getting out of it or not letting it do it, is to overcome the friction that is causing the grip/slip/grip/slip condition and just get the tires spinning. My brothers '13 1500 with the 4 link rear, and coils (same style rear suspension as the new gen PW's), i will say has just as much wheel hop in high traction situations as any of my trucks (WOT launch on pavement). He won't let me hit the deep snow with it, so no idea if it acts the same in deep snow, but on normal snow covered streets I don't notice any wheel hop at all.
Even IRS vehicles get this condition, just not as severe.

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[MoparToYou]

Here you go, just installed what is going to be my attempt at eliminating, or at least decreasing axle wrap/hop on my 2016 Power Wagon. All it cost me was the price of two shocks, and two longer bolts. It drives the same on the highway. Haven't had a chance to get it in the snow or sand yet, but I will report back after I test it out.

[RAM4ROKS]

That's pretty crazy to me that the coil rear trucks still have hop/wrap issues. I daresay though that we are putting our truck's into situations a bit beyond what a design that has to be compromised enough to keep the masses and the bean counters happy can deal with though! I've managed to get my truck (a 2012) into situations where both front and rear axles are hopping, gotta get off the gas quick in that situation as it is quite violent and likely that breakage is imminent!!!
adeluca73- Thanks for the engineering explanations on the design! Some good reads!
MoparToYou- I hope your triple shock mod works for you! If it does make a good amount of difference, I would think it to be a good idea to do a little fab work to make your outer shocks mount is dual shear rather than single shear to avoid mount breakage! (ie- if they are effective enough to make a difference, they will be putting a LOT more strain on the mounting point!)

[Reloaderguy]

Here you go, just installed what is going to be my attempt at eliminating, or at least decreasing axle wrap/hop on my 2016 Power Wagon. All it cost me was the price of two shocks, and two longer bolts. It drives the same on the highway. Haven't had a chance to get it in the snow or sand yet, but I will report back after I test it out.

Sooooooo, whats the high speed damping like with two additional shocks?

[adeluca73]

Here you go, just installed what is going to be my attempt at eliminating, or at least decreasing axle wrap/hop on my 2016 Power Wagon. All it cost me was the price of two shocks, and two longer bolts. It drives the same on the highway. Haven't had a chance to get it in the snow or sand yet, but I will report back after I test it out.

Man that's awesome. Did you have to drop the rear end at all, or did you just bolt the extra two shocks on in place with a longer bolt?

What length & size did you buy again?

[MoparToYou]

I just bolted the shocks on with the truck sitting in my garage. These gas pressurized shocks are stiff, and I have a rotator cuff injury, which limits what I can do with my right arm. So I wasn't strong enough to compress the shocks to the right length without using a lever to press against one end of the shock to compress it. Other than that, everything went together quite easily. The bolts are m-14 x 180 mm, with a 2.0 pitch so I could use the stock nuts. Hardness is 10.9.

I can't tell any difference in highway ride. These shocks really don't move with normal suspension movement, they only function to prevent axle wrap.

[TwinStick]

Waiting for the off-road report.

[Will]

If there is any angle on those shocks, they will compress slightly even when the axle moves up and down. Looks like a good attempt, especially if it has any wrap play in the factory bushings but I wonder if it'll do anything at all for hop. Hurry up and go try it! haha

[PWRider]

One thing for sure when I had one shock go lose aka not attached to axle (no bolt). It was hopping like crazy. It was better after I put it back together. After installing new Bilsteins it seems to be even better. Got to find some time to visit dunes on coast to find out for sure though.

[adeluca73]

I just bolted the shocks on with the truck sitting in my garage. These gas pressurized shocks are stiff, and I have a rotator cuff injury, which limits what I can do with my right arm. So I wasn't strong enough to compress the shocks to the right length without using a lever to press against one end of the shock to compress it. Other than that, everything went together quite easily. The bolts are m-14 x 180 mm, with a 2.0 pitch so I could use the stock nuts. Hardness is 10.9.

I can't tell any difference in highway ride. These shocks really don't move with normal suspension movement, they only function to prevent axle wrap.

Nice. Did you put any type of spacers between the stock mount and the extra shock? Looks like there's some washers stacked up on both sides. So I looked again at the pics you posted and noticed you mounted the outer two shocks in the opposite direction of the stock OEM shock, was there a particular reason why? Since you mounted them in the opposite direction in parallel, I think you may have cancelled the desired effect you're seeking. See my Free Body Diagram attached for what I'm talking about.