- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
It could be... my question is whether it would help significantly.
-
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Polishing a turd: Homebrew truss
- Thread starter dgrigorenko
- Start date
DeftwillP
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Round Rock TX
Yeah, I guess I can see how the forces on the carrier would be different from those on the r/p.
jeeperjohn
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Temecula, CA
The best you can do for a stock carrier is take some abrasive attachments like what you'd port heads with and smooth out all of the sharp edges in the openings on the sides of it. These sharp edges are the starting points for cracks. I would bet you could get a carrier cryo treated for about what a R&P costs to treat.
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
Agreed. The one sitting here decorating my desk at work has some pretty rough edges, I imagine they must result in fairly significant stress risers, smoothing them out would probably help a lot. And that's where about 4 different mechanical engineers will probably tell me I'm using all the wrong terms...
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
i'm welding, not mechanical, but your terminology is right.
ok little update: i was able do cut out the major shapes into the 2x4, and it fits up pretty nicely. i think u am going to clearance around the driverside UCA and then go over the top with some plate to tie in the two sides.
another small hitch: i broke my finger in the process... basically what happened was that i was readjusting the axle on the cinderblocks was not really ready for the rotational effect that an axle can have when its being supported on the driverside LCA... sooo it spun off the block and caught my finger between it and the other block. im sure i am going to get flamed for using cinder blocks, but its all i had. addmitably not the best. and luckily it was only the very tip and fractured the last segment.
and for some pics:
DeftwillP
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Round Rock TX
foxwar71
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Foxboro, MA
badass hand injury, time to flip off everyone you know .!.
.!.
whats the plan for the ends of the truss? are you gunna make the sides tamper down and meet at the base of the coil buckets?
.!.whats the plan for the ends of the truss? are you gunna make the sides tamper down and meet at the base of the coil buckets?
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
badass hand injury, time to flip off everyone you know .!.
whats the plan for the ends of the truss? are you gunna make the sides tamper down and meet at the base of the coil buckets?
yeah its not too bad, just really annoying. it makes it kinda hard to type
i do still plan on angleing both sides and welding them to the coil buckets, i ran out of cut off wheels though so hopefully that will happen today. we will see what i can get done with the finger .!.
.!.
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
ouch, that really sucks. I can one-arm a 30 once the shafts/gears are out of it, but it probably could still break my finger with ease.
How are you going to angle the sides? Cut wedges out of the sidewalls of the tubing and bend the top face? It seems kinda silly to cut the top face and half the sidewalls off and then weld plate in, at that point you might as well just make it all from plate. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the lines you drew on it there.
How are you going to angle the sides? Cut wedges out of the sidewalls of the tubing and bend the top face? It seems kinda silly to cut the top face and half the sidewalls off and then weld plate in, at that point you might as well just make it all from plate. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the lines you drew on it there.
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
yeah its actually kinda scary how light just the D30 housing is. hence the truss... i was more thinking of just cutting the wedge off and welding plate on the top. yeah it probably would have been just as easy or easier to make the whole thing out of plate, but the only "plate" (sheet actually) i have is 10ga, and i didnt really want it to be that thin. plus i do have plenty of .25 tube.
its all a matter of using what i have, the only thing it might cost me is more time, but i dont have anything else to do till monday.
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
I'm lazy, so I'd probably go the "cut wedges, bend, weld" route. It may be too late for that though because you may have cut the bottoms of the walls too short while planning on cutting the top off... not sure.
foxwar71
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Foxboro, MA
Best way I found to build full length rect tubing trusses:
Cut
Bend & weld
Cut again
Weld again
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
foxwar: that came out really nicely! i think if i had larger tube and were doing the whole thing with coil buckets and all that would be the way to go.
I made progress! well i should day WE made progress. i recruited the help of a fellow XJer, and only by his help did much get done.
the man working:
well kastein wins with the method that i used to angle it... we cut wedges and bent the top down. only on the long side though, there are other plans for the short side.
to maintain structural strength and not have to remove the cast UCA, we decided to add a "bridge over the center section:
and from the back
as you can see there is a brace for it on the pass. side, and there will be another on the ds.
I made progress! well i should day WE made progress. i recruited the help of a fellow XJer, and only by his help did much get done.
the man working:
well kastein wins with the method that i used to angle it... we cut wedges and bent the top down. only on the long side though, there are other plans for the short side.
to maintain structural strength and not have to remove the cast UCA, we decided to add a "bridge over the center section:
and from the back
as you can see there is a brace for it on the pass. side, and there will be another on the ds.
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
I got the idea from looking at other people's work :thumbup: I would probably come up with the same thing though, I prefer cutting and welding as little as I can to get the desired shape.
Here is how I did mine. I made it out of 2x4x3/16 box.
Love the u-bolt plate mini skids. very inventive and it turned out sweet! If it weren't for the 5 holes in them i wouldn't have thought twice about it.
foxwar71
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Foxboro, MA
i still dont see any purpose of the short side in either of those two trusses. unless youre going all the way to the inner c and either one full piece across the top or at least tied into the housing like xjtrailriders, its not really adding any strength.
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
well the idea is to take as much stress off the housing as possible. I do fully intend on welding to the housing with some Ni electrode. Hopefully I will be able to gusset my c's and tie in as much as possible to the coil buckets. We will see how it turns out
- Location
- Rainy side of Washington
Even a fairly small amount of material that far from the tube can add some rigidity... More if it's welded to the housing though.
Gaius
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Beaverton, OR
Looks great. However, the weak point are the inner Cs. I didn't brace my upper and caught a little too much air and bent my long side on my TJ. Might want to run a brace over to the coil mount.
dgrigorenko
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Big Rapids MI
YAY updates with pictures!
we really got jamming on this thing on Friday night because i thought that i was going to be heading to the dunes today, but the rest of the group ended up backing out... which is ok because i had some other things that i could use to get done while the axle is out.
but... on with the pictures:
got the passenger side uca mount on and all the welding finished:
the addition for the center:
then Tad got another good idea for attaching some more metal to the coil buckets, which i thought was a great idea. its hard to tell from the pics, but they are at an angle, not flat which will add to the strength, and definitely wont hurt it.
I also took Gaius' advice and threw on some gussets on the upper C. i have not braced them to the coil buckets just yet, but it will probably happen.
that pretty much concludes my truss, now i have to figure out the bumpstops (Prothane) and it should be good to go. overall, i am very happy with the way this turned out using nothing but a 4.5 inch grinder and a welding machine. HUGE props go out to Tad helping out with my broken finger!! i owe that guy a lot of beer :guitar:
some may have noticed that i have not welded it to the center section yet... i still plan to, but time and resources are the factors holding me back.
we really got jamming on this thing on Friday night because i thought that i was going to be heading to the dunes today, but the rest of the group ended up backing out... which is ok because i had some other things that i could use to get done while the axle is out.
but... on with the pictures:
got the passenger side uca mount on and all the welding finished:
the addition for the center:
then Tad got another good idea for attaching some more metal to the coil buckets, which i thought was a great idea. its hard to tell from the pics, but they are at an angle, not flat which will add to the strength, and definitely wont hurt it.
I also took Gaius' advice and threw on some gussets on the upper C. i have not braced them to the coil buckets just yet, but it will probably happen.
that pretty much concludes my truss, now i have to figure out the bumpstops (Prothane) and it should be good to go. overall, i am very happy with the way this turned out using nothing but a 4.5 inch grinder and a welding machine. HUGE props go out to Tad helping out with my broken finger!! i owe that guy a lot of beer :guitar:
some may have noticed that i have not welded it to the center section yet... i still plan to, but time and resources are the factors holding me back.
