australian lada niva forum

... from a Daihatsu F50 will fit the rear of the Niva.


Toyota Landcruiser rears will also fit on a lifted rear. 3" longer compressed and 5 " longer extended.
(springs can be removed with shocks in place) (longer springs needed )

I've heard that replacing niva springs and shocks with after market ones, run the risk of damaging the mounts and potentially breaking other things.. any truth in this?

Looking at lifting mine, only an inch or 3, so info could be helpful...

bob oz reported damaging his front shock mounts, but I'm not entirely convinced this was down to the shockers

I'm inclined to think of this as yet another "Lada Niva Myth"

I've heard many times that using Suzuki wheels (or any wheel other than a Lada one) will cause immediate wheel bearing failure, yet I believe that the Gremlin has had it's sunraysia rims (more offset than zook rims) on since new, and the bearings are fine.

The only real difference I saw (my soft top originally had Vitata rims on it, the teardrop kind) and it was quite heavy and unresponsive in the steering, but once the original cheeze cutters went on, the stearing was light as a feather.

May need to look into some more front springs I thinks, this weekend at Landcruiser park will help me decide for sure what the car needs, will be the first 3 consecutive day, serious offroading trip I take this one on. Should be fun

Kings do some great springs. Bilsteins on the frt. never gave me an ounce of shock trouble. corrugations every day. Beefed mine before they gave trouble. Every other part of the body came apart on me.
Never a front wheel bearing problem for me. Sunraysias with 215/75/15's.

Eddy wrote:bob oz reported damaging his front shock mounts, but I'm not entirely convinced this was down to the shockers

I'm inclined to think of this as yet another "Lada Niva Myth"

Nah, the problem is more widely reported, eg the French site has pics of upper failures and fixes for the front, there's several beef-ups for the lowers on the Russian sites, etc.

The welding quality of the Niva top front shock mounts can vary quite a lot, which is probably why some can take stiffer shocks and some can't. Well that, and Niva shock mounts probably get more of a bashing than a normal car.

Easy fix though with a bit of angle (or even just decent re-welding of the factory bracket) if anyone does need stiffer shocks.