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Track Bar Breakage Normal?

9

98xjjeeper

NAXJA Forum User
Location
nc
I have a 4.5 rustys lift and it came with a heavy duty track bar but i have been breaking the tre on it a lot lately. One time was a Uwharrie going up a rocky climb which i think i hit a rock on bottom part on it. I am not sure why it broke this time but it i turn the steering wheel back and forth i notice it is moving alot where the tre goes into the track bar. So i this it is almost about to go. I have never heard of breaking a track bar this much. is a RE HD track bar better because spending over 30 bucks on a regular basis is getting old.
 
are you tightening the lock nut?

what it's doing is pulling the threads out of the end of the trackbar. if you've done it once, you can't reuse that trackbar without having it repaired as the threads are gone and re-threading it will mean it's bigger diameter than your joint.

and rusty's trackbars are anything but quality.
 
I've broken that end of the trac bar like 4 or 5 times.

I ditched that trac bar and put a TNT trac bar in problem solved.

Good luck
 
Rustys would have sent you a new TRE for free... I agree the TREs suck but rusty didnt make them... He obviously sources the TREs... Mine broke and he sent me a whole different track bar, a bigger better one...
 
Call him up and talk to him. I was having problems with mine and he had me make some measurements for him and sent some pics and he made me a heavier duty track bar with a 7/8 TRE and I havnt had a problem since.

Good luck
 
Get rid of the TRE mount. You should be able to replace it with a heim or better yet, Currie, Summit or RE joint that you can lube regularly. The likely cause of breakage is that the TRE binds during droop and stresses the socket or thread area.

Changing the plane that the joint operates on will also create as stronger mounting point as well as add to the flex and life of a heim style joint.
RE, TNT, JKS all make trackbar frame mounts to correct this binding issue, or you can fab your own.


Add up your money already spent on a cheaper setup plus downtime and money on repairs......the solution should be pretty obvious.
 
thanks guys. I am thinking of just getting heim joint and replacing the tre with that. then it will be like the RE track bars. Do you guys think that will work?
 
i hate track bars ive always had trouble rustys is a peice of crap i had a bds which was the same quality i have a buddy that uses a tj rear trackbar and a aftermarket mount and he says it works great
 
I just built my own out of a short straight piece of 1.25 DOM and a RE builder bushing, and RE SuperFlex rod end on the other end... moved the lower mount on top of the axle and it works great... and cheaper too...
 
Rusty's trackbars are well known for failure. :) Search here a bit, you will find hundreds of failure stories, often from even mall crawlers who have them fail on the pavement.
 
I ditched the TRE set up several years ago and bought his HD frame mount with the poly bushing end for the trac-bar. It has worked fine for me...

"hundreds" of failures is a little much I think.
 
No, actually....hundreds probably isn't a stretch...I'd bet its up there in triple digits easily...
 
Pat said:
I ditched the TRE set up several years ago and bought his HD frame mount with the poly bushing end for the trac-bar. It has worked fine for me...

"hundreds" of failures is a little much I think.
Click to expand...

Same here. Beat the snot out of it and it has held up fine.
 
I made a track bar with poly on both sides. Similar to the Rusty HD. 1.25 .250 DOM. works fine, the end can not bind up on it.
 
Pat said:
I ditched the TRE set up several years ago and bought his HD frame mount with the poly bushing end for the trac-bar. It has worked fine for me...

"hundreds" of failures is a little much I think.
Click to expand...

Thats the one I'm running. Haven't had a problem, it's been on since Nov.03. JIM.
 
for my opinion rusty is too much bent if you have a small lift like my one (4"); the TRE work with high angle and the force try to bend/snap it, I've bent two of them, I guess to go back to the original one.....
 
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