Almost sexy

Well for me its pretty pornographic.....look at all the pretty triangles.





XJguy

Way above my fab skills, but is their a reason you didn't grind off the exess weld?

Lazy and lack of time. At this point I need function with just okay looks. Besides, for something so crucial like steering / suspension components I rather leave the excess welds. With rollcages and steering, the general rule is to just try and get your welds as nice as you can first time around, but dont grind anything just for asthetics sake.

XJguy

I hope you didnt pay Beezil's mom for those welds!Actually when using JB weld its ok to wipe up the drips........

You know that you could have added a piece from the trackbar mount to the UCA mount to brace them both

I plan on addind support to the UCA mount coming up here in the next few months.

AARON

With that axle all painted up purdy, I'm guessing PhatXJ must have dropped by I think he had a coat of wax on that D35 I took off his hands

JKTXJ said:

With that axle all painted up purdy, I'm guessing PhatXJ must have dropped by I think he had a coat of wax on that D35 I took off his hands

Click to expand...

When the local hockey team runs out of pucks, do they call you?

Heh heh..I cleaned out Sport Authority.

XJguy

how much lift are you running!?!? It looks like the draglink and trac-bar will not be parallel, closer to perpendicular would be my guess. Are you worried about the bracket you built contacting anything uptop, like the frame or oil pan? Just curious.

Ary

8" of lift. As far as I can tell clearance is not an issue. Rather than lower the frame end or have some wacky convoluted track bar, I raised the axle end, this accomplishes everything I need it too. Everything is lined up, I made special steering components all out of 4130, and the TB and drag link are exactly inline.

The pictures below are part of my two piece tie rod. Thats 7/8-18 thread rod cut off a brand new tie rod end. The rest of the structure is all 4130 TIG welded. The gussets are 1/4" thick. The bar is 3/4" thick. The walls on the 1.25" 4130 tubing are 3/8" thick. Structure was preheated before welding and allowed to cool slowly. I still need to TIG the thread in place and cut some holes into the gussets to lighten things up a bit. Youre looking at about $300 dollars of Jeep steering for this part alone! Thats not including my labor!




XJguy

Rich,
If that piece is what you're going to attach the draglink to than you're in for some big problems. The tierod will just flop from side to side untill it bottoms out the tierod ends at the knuckles & than it will turn the steering. The steering will feel extremely loose & you'll wear out the rod ends (tie rods or heims) very fast by bottoming them out at every turn of the steeing wheel. In order for a "T" style steering setup to work it has to connect to the tierod as close to the center line of the tierod as possible. Even the steering setups that use short tabs off the draglink push the tierod back & forth. One exaple I can think of off the top of my head is Goatmans. He still has had trouble with the jam nuts working loose because of this. Just a little heads up from a guy that's been there. Good luck.

Matt

I saw that last night but didnt have the heart to tell him!Roll is a problem with any of the T setups.Its actually a concern for the Y-guys also since the drag-link isnt straight!

Oh man...thats not good at all. So if I understand correctly, instead of pushing and pulling the steering bars left to right it will push and pull the now heavily leveraged drag link attachment point forward and aft? Even if I snug things to rediculous torques and lock-tite it? Maybe even use a castle nut/jam nut to lock it in place?

Got a pic of Rich G's setup?

XJ "shoulda consulted with the pros"guy

Rich,

Man...

Matt is totally right here, that will never work as a way to turn your tie rod via the drag link, (mayba ok at the mall). It will put so much wear/force on the TREs or heims it's not even funny. With the heigth of that the leverage is going to be hugh. Too bad you can't get your 300 of tig welding back for something else. I was wondering what you were doing with such a high TB bracket. Better get to redesign fast Moabs coming up FAST!

mark
orgs mfg

You need to fertilize your lawn before heading out to MOAB.

You know when I was designing this thing (been planning for weeks) I did not forsee the movement you guys have bought to my attention. However once I began to tack things into place and take measurements and make cuts, I did see the dilemma early on. However, the movement is really very restricted, also I think that the angle at which the drag link will be pushing and pulling will allow for minimal objectionable movement.

I am going to go ahead with this setup and if I am dead wrong, which I may very well be especially considering you guys know what your talking about and I do value your opinions, then I will chalk it up as a learning experience.....and spend the night before I drive out to Moab cutting and welding my whole steering system!

I might just weld in some tabs to the steering knuckle under the TRE to not allow it to fully rotate in the direction I do not need it to. As far as the loosening TREs, I will tap a hole into the side of the tubing where I can screw in a metal plate that will extend to the flats of the jam nut. When secured the plate will prevent the jam nut from possibly coming loose. I can also drill a set screw into the side of the TRE or the tubing; the tubing is so thick that any holes will not affect the strength enough that I have to worry. What do you think?

XJguy

There is no fix for your design!The thing is going to roll and roll bad!

Rich,
I wish I had a pic of my first steering attempt. It was basically what you are trying to do with that bracket. Just sitting in the driveway it would rock for & aft until it bottomed the heims & would than turn the wheels. I thought I would be slick & welded some more DOM half way up the mount for a second heim & lined it up with the bottom heim & through bolted them to the knuckle so that the tierod couldn't move for & aft. This solved that problem, but I didn't take into acount the change in angle due to caster & that setup ended up binding half way through the travel of the steering left to right. I know it's hard to walk away from something you've just spent a lot of time working on & throwing money at, but it's better to deal with it now than later. Sorry Rich.

Matt

PS
The welds are pretty though

Okay say it does exactly what you guys say it does and just bobs back and forth, how bad will it be if I keep the TB where it is, way up high, and only lower the drag link to as close to the tie rod as possible while keeping inline with the TB mounting point?

Reason I ask is even with the high cost the drag link is easy to change...but that bracket on the axle is a major undertaking.

XJguy