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3-link Plans

rockclimber

Associate
NAXJA Member
Location
San Diego
I've begun planning for a 3-link front once school gets out. I am sitting right about +4" and am probably going to go up 1"

my first thought is to get some stiffeners from HD offroad, weld those on and weld the brackets to them.

I want to run 25" "mid" arms.

the lowers would be on the bottom of the frame similar to the stock setup.

my plan is to plate the inside of the passenger side rail and run a Passenger side upper by re-locating my Currie upper Housing kit more towards the center of the axle and at the proper angle. I would also replace the JJ barrel with one that takes a 1/2" bolt
my thought is that a passenger side upper would be easier since the driver side mount can't really be moved and there isn't a bunch of fuel and vent lines in the way on the frame rail.

the lower brackets on the axle would be replaced with 1/4" brackets and re-angled to line up with the new arms..

I'm planning on re-using all the JJ's on my Rokmen arms now. I will probably end up lengthening the existing upper and sleeving it, the lowers will either be lengthened with an internal sleeve or be rebuilt using existing joints.

I also plan on moving the pan-hard up with an offset panhard bracket from Ruffstuff which would level it out at ride height and doing a hi-steer setup by flipping my cRusty's steering to the top of the knuckles and drilling everything for 5/8" heims.


thoughts? something I have missed? some crucial reason why I can't run a setup like this on a DD?
 
I'm also planning to run a truss in the front that will run from bucket to bucket and then I will tie the buckets in to the C's.

I also haven't decided on what to run as far as springs and shocks because I don't know how much travel this is going to get me. Ideally I will go with coilovers but that is somewhere down the line when I have the cash.
 
I haven't measured it from the roof, but with 33"s to the bottom of the rocker panel is 22" in the front and 22.5" rear.
 
will a half inch bolt be enough for the upper in a 3-link? can you get JJ's with a larger bore to fit a larger bolt?
 
will a half inch bolt be enough for the upper in a 3-link? can you get JJ's with a larger bore to fit a larger bolt?

I personally wouldn't run a .5" bolt, in a single upper.
.625" at minimum.

I am planning on using my existing upper bracket from currie and the existing forged joint, both of which are only 2" when I first checked I thought I could only get a 1/2" bore ball from currie in the 2" width, but upon further inspection they make a 5/8" bore ball, which is what I will be going with instead of 1/2"

I wasn't crazy about going with only a 1/2" but now that I have a better option without buying new joints I am happy...
 
any reason your going with a 2" width joint for the upper?
any place you can fit a 2" you should be able to fit a full size joint, and it would make for less worry considering that single upper will be seeing a lot of forces.
 
personally if I were building a custom link setup, I'd run heims on both ends of all three links, and make them identical so all your spares are interchangable. plus it makes all the link brackets on the axle real easy to make, just two parallel plates reinforced/gusseted. Just my opinion.

I don't know about running a passenger side upper. The side with both upper and lower is the side that sets the axle angle when flexing. Usually the reason for running it on the side with the driveshaft is so the axle stays roughly in line with the shaft to prevent the u-joint from binding when flexing.

As far as steering with drilled out knuckles, they tend to pop every time you turn. My d44 front has 3/4" bolts in the steering, you can't even feel the popping in the steering, and it doesn't affect anything, but it can be annoying on a DD if you don't have high tolerance. You'll have to run high misalignment spacer's in the drag link, probably 3/4 down to 5/8 if you're looking to run 5/8" bolts.
 
any reason your going with a 2" width joint for the upper?
any place you can fit a 2" you should be able to fit a full size joint, and it would make for less worry considering that single upper will be seeing a lot of forces.

only because I already have the 2" JJ's from my Rokmen uppers. and if I swap in the 5/8" ball it doesn't really matter what width joint I run.

personally if I were building a custom link setup, I'd run heims on both ends of all three links, and make them identical so all your spares are interchangable. plus it makes all the link brackets on the axle real easy to make, just two parallel plates reinforced/gusseted. Just my opinion.

yea, I'm on the fence on whether or not I try to sell my Rokmen CA's and build all new ones, or just re-use the JJ's. I really like the way my JJ's are performing. the point about spares is a good one, but I don't really foresee needing a spare arm. I really don't think I can recoup enough $$ to buy 6 Heims with misalignment and weld in bungs. and I do like the idea of having some vibration dampening in the joints for DD use.

as far as the brackets go, they wouldn't need to be any different for JJ use, except that the lowers would need to be 2.5" wide instead of 2"

I don't know about running a passenger side upper. The side with both upper and lower is the side that sets the axle angle when flexing. Usually the reason for running it on the side with the driveshaft is so the axle stays roughly in line with the shaft to prevent the u-joint from binding when flexing.
no.
the panhard is what sets the lateral movement of the axle. and the upper does set the pinion angle in conjunction with the lowers, however it will do that regardless of what side of the axle it is on. in fact it is often more practical to put it on the opposite side of the tube from the driveshaft since the most rotational leverage from the axleshafts is seen on that side of the axle.

As far as steering with drilled out knuckles, they tend to pop every time you turn. My d44 front has 3/4" bolts in the steering, you can't even feel the popping in the steering, and it doesn't affect anything, but it can be annoying on a DD if you don't have high tolerance. You'll have to run high misalignment spacer's in the drag link, probably 3/4 down to 5/8 if you're looking to run 5/8" bolts.
why would a knuckle drilled out to 5/8" pop any more than a knuckle drilled with a taper?... my TRE's are shot and pop plenty...

and I would need to run misalignment spacers on my Tie-rod, which is no big deal they would be no higher than a standard TRE, not draglink since the drag link will be mounted in double shear to a bracket on the tie-rod.
 
no.
the panhard is what sets the lateral movement of the axle. and the upper does set the pinion angle in conjunction with the lowers, however it will do that regardless of what side of the axle it is on. in fact it is often more practical to put it on the opposite side of the tube from the driveshaft since the most rotational leverage from the axleshafts is seen on that side of the axle.

Not refering to lateral movement but pinion angle. Maybe my 3-link's geometry is screwed up (actually highly likely), but it rotates partly in the radius of the driveshaft, so the pinion's almost straight throughout the range.

why would a knuckle drilled out to 5/8" pop any more than a knuckle drilled with a taper?... my TRE's are shot and pop plenty...

A tapered end is screwed in until it's tight all around. A bolt in a hole can shift side to side, it's only maybe 1/1000" but it's enough to make plenty of noise.
 
Not refering to lateral movement but pinion angle. Maybe my 3-link's geometry is screwed up (actually highly likely), but it rotates partly in the radius of the driveshaft, so the pinion's almost straight throughout the range.
that is one of the reasons for making the upper slightly longer than the lowers, to keep the pinion angle set throughout the cycle of the suspension.


A tapered end is screwed in until it's tight all around. A bolt in a hole can shift side to side, it's only maybe 1/1000" but it's enough to make plenty of noise.

I suppose, but if I keep them torqued tight enough I don't see how they can be any worse than TRE's
 
that is one of the reasons for making the upper slightly longer than the lowers, to keep the pinion angle set throughout the cycle of the suspension.

I suppose, but if I keep them torqued tight enough I don't see how they can be any worse than TRE's

agreed, if a bolt is rattling in the hole it passes through it's not tightened down properly. if the bolt is torqued down, the clamping forces should create enough friction between the pieces to keep it in place.
well as I understand it atleast.
 
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