Machining Flat Tops

[ExNews4XJ]

I have all my brakes figured out now and I am going to machine the knuckles for the arms. The knuckls are from a 74' Jeep Cherokee FSJ. My question is when I mill the top of the knuckles so the arms have a perfectly flat mounting area do I machine them parallel to the spindle or perpendicular to the ball-joints?

Thanks David

 

[ZPD]

I will preface this by stating that I don't have mine completly installed yet but the surface on my flat top knuckle are not parallel to the spindle. They are at about 10* to the spindle. Whether that is perpendicular to the ball joints or not I don't know. Most high steer arms have a 10* flat surface on them to compensate for this and when everything is mounted up, that 10* surface on the arm is parallel to the ground. Assuming that the axis of the spindle is parallel to the ground, the machined surface on the knuckle should be off by 10*.

 

[ExNews4XJ]

Ok well after some more investigation I decided that machining them perpendicular to the spindle mounting surface would remove to much material and weaken the knuckle. So here is how they turned out, I machined them perpendicular to the ball joint studs or parallel to the top of the recess for ball joints.I plan on getting arms with the 10 degree correction on them to account for the arms no being flat when the knukles are mounted on the axle. Oh and the little holes are just air bubbles that were in the casting.

 

[baseballneal86]

Looks good.

What setup are you gonna run from the knuckles out?

 

[ExNews4XJ]

I am using the stock Chevy small bearing spindles and stub shafts along with the Chevy caliper brackets and calipers but because my rear axle is 5x5.5 bolt pattern I am using the hub and rotor off of a 1980 full size Bronco. Everything bolts together with no modifications and looks stock.

 

[baseballneal86]

Is this all going on a HP44?

 

[ExNews4XJ]

yep, The axle is from a f-250 but has been narrowed so that it uses wagoneer inner shafts.

 

[kerndogg]

what do you charge to do a knuckle?

 

[ExNews4XJ]

I haven't really thought about doing them for other people. I go to school for machining and this was just a project I decided to do. I have seen other shops charge around 50 bucks to do them so I could probably do them for the same.

 

[malodin]

question on machining the knuckles.

you machined them to be directly parallel with the recesed circle that the ball joint is in right? im a little confused as to the correct angle to machine the tops of them.

also what type of cutting tool did you use? i have a 3 way axis bridgeport style mill, but all i have are end mills with 2 or 4 flute design and nothing bigger than 1/2 inch, ive seen someones pictures that used some sort of round thing with 3 bits on it i dont know what this is called.

Any help would be appreciated