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thoughts on this Beefy steering brace

It is definitely done right.
 
It's about time somebody put one of these out for the xj, psc has been selling their dodge ram version for years. IMHO it's the best way to brace a steering box, placing the pitman arm in double shear. Definitely a great product for those who don't want to fab one. I bought the nut from psc for $25, a $10 pillow block, and welded a plate to the bottom of my receiver hitch after snapping a sector shaft a couple years ago and haven't had a problem since.
 
Makes mine look like a Willow branch.
 
I think it's a great idea and great design, but priced a bit too high. The PSC brace for a Ram is $160 and basically the exact same thing. I know the boostwerks kit is built about 100x stronger, but does it really need to be?

PSC was going to sell me their nut and bearing for $60, but I'm sure the parts are like $20 total. Vetteboy on Pirate bought a nut and machined it himself to make the same setup. You can build the brace with some square tube and angle iron for pretty cheap and bolt it right to the sway bar mount holes.
 
boostworks has his nut and mount on sale for $50 so you can make your own brace. Only thing I dont like about it is the fact that I have to use sway bar drop brackets just so u can run your front sway bar. Otherwise its a very good quality product in mind.
 
Looks about like the one I built, but better. I think mine is a touch higher but I don't think ground clearance is really an issue in that area. Unfortunately there isn't really a good way to do this style of brace without moving the swaybar.

I'm wondering to myself if I can retrofit mine to work with one of the offroad sway bars by mounting it through the tube.

For what it's worth, I bought just the PSC nut for less than $20, and bought a bearing at bearingson.com and saved prob $20 over the PSC price for nut + bearing.
 
It looks like pure awesome and if I was planning to go up to 35s or more, it would be part of my build plan.
As it is... way overkill for my rig and not exactly a cheap upgrade, either.
Looks really nicely done.
I like his new website, too.
 
sunburned said:
PSC was going to sell me their nut and bearing for $60, but I'm sure the parts are like $20 total. Vetteboy on Pirate bought a nut and machined it himself to make the same setup. You can build the brace with some square tube and angle iron for pretty cheap and bolt it right to the sway bar mount holes.
Click to expand...

not everyone has the tools or the skills to build something like this for themselves, you have to remember that. ;) a lot of folks can't do much more than bolt ons in the carport behind their apartment building, that's why products like this exist.
 
Thanks for the input guys! I thought I'd chime in with my opinion on some things...

sunburned said:
I think it's a great idea and great design, but priced a bit too high. The PSC brace for a Ram is $160 and basically the exact same thing. I know the boostwerks kit is built about 100x stronger, but does it really need to be?

PSC was going to sell me their nut and bearing for $60, but I'm sure the parts are like $20 total. Vetteboy on Pirate bought a nut and machined it himself to make the same setup. You can build the brace with some square tube and angle iron for pretty cheap and bolt it right to the sway bar mount holes.
Click to expand...

In terms of price, it's simply a matter of "you get what you pay for". We could have made them cheaper by short cutting the design, build quality, or whoring them out to China. However, I refuse to sacrifice quality for cost.

In terms of design, we started out with the intention of making the Ultimate XJ steering brace. If it looks overbuilt, that means we did exactly what we set out to do. After all, our brace is more of a unibody sub-frame compared to PSC's frame mounted brace.

Again I'd like to point out that we offer the bearing and nut for those who want to build their own setup. :thumbup:

Look very very heavy, but nice.
Click to expand...

Including all hardware, the brace comes in at 24lbs. While not exactly light, the weight comes in the best possible form...structure. After all, ask anyone who has wheeled an XJ long enough what they would do if they were to build another XJ? ;)

Bryson
 
Boostwerks.com said:
In terms of price, it's simply a matter of "you get what you pay for". We could have made them cheaper by short cutting the design, build quality, or whoring them out to China. However, I refuse to sacrifice quality for cost.

In terms of design, we started out with the intention of making the Ultimate XJ steering brace. If it looks overbuilt, that means we did exactly what we set out to do. After all, our brace is more of a unibody sub-frame compared to PSC's frame mounted brace.

Again I'd like to point out that we offer the bearing and nut for those who want to build their own setup. :thumbup:



Including all hardware, the brace comes in at 24lbs. While not exactly light, the weight comes in the best possible form...structure. After all, ask anyone who has wheeled an XJ long enough what they would do if they were to build another XJ? ;)

Bryson
Click to expand...

I totally understand dude, I was just voicing the same opinions here that I did in your thread. I always say how cheap XJ owners are, so I guess I'm just furthering that stereotype haha.

Honestly though, I spent a shitload of money trying to perfect the steering on my XJ and never really got it right, even with all heims and hydro assist. If I could go back and to it, I'd get a brand new steering box from Redhead or PSC, pump upgrade, and some sort of sector shaft brace like yours. And how beefy your brace looks, I'm sure it stiffens up the crap out of the unibody where it needs it the most.

So honestly as much as I'm bitching, its about time someone brought this kind of product to our market.

:patriot:
 
sunburned said:
I totally understand dude, I was just voicing the same opinions here that I did in your thread. I always say how cheap XJ owners are, so I guess I'm just furthering that stereotype haha.

Honestly though, I spent a shitload of money trying to perfect the steering on my XJ and never really got it right, even with all heims and hydro assist. If I could go back and to it, I'd get a brand new steering box from Redhead or PSC, pump upgrade, and some sort of sector shaft brace like yours. And how beefy your brace looks, I'm sure it stiffens up the crap out of the unibody where it needs it the most.

So honestly as much as I'm bitching, its about time someone brought this kind of product to our market.

:patriot:
Click to expand...

No worries! I appreciate the feedback for sure. I fully understand cost is a concern with most XJ owners (especially in this under paid/over charged country of ours). :cheers:
 
Having seen the cracks and damage that the front left frame rail receives when wheeled hard, this should help prevent that since it will keep the frame rail from twisting so much due to the steering box torquing it. One of those Rubicon Express style track bar mount braces that runs to the other frame rail added as well, plus weld-on stiffeners for the front uniframe would probably prevent the issue entirely - we've had stiffeners and track bar braces available for years, but no steering box brace to really finish things off. A friend of mine (xbaadleej on here) thought he had a small 2-3" crack on his frame rail for a while, discovered when he removed the steering box that that was just the start of the crack and the steering box was basically all that was holding the frame together. He was only on 35s.
 
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