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The Lab Rat - SFR's R&D Comanche

Now that the new bushings were in it was finally time to swap out the axles. It's been a while since I've worked on a stock rig. It's kind of a pain getting everything to line up, especially with only one set of hands working on it.

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In with the new!
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wow.... i knew 7075 was tough but have never seen that kind of demonstration for a tie rod.

and the little plate for the passenger side UCA mount is something i havent seen someone offer. i made my own back when i still had a 30. those mounts like to fold, its cheap insurance.
 
StinkyFab said:
Here's a little flex demonstration I filmed a couple days ago to show what I mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B601rrLFn-E&feature=youtu.be


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Click to expand...

Impressive....but I got a question....in that pic, it looks to me like the bolt for the heim is twisted/cocked pretty good, at least on the passengers side....seems like that is a failure point, or if the bolt doesn't fail, it could twist the knuckle arm, which would prevent returning to normal.
 
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Pretty sure it's a camera trick going on there. The bolt is straight, and the knuckle isn't flexing. If it were it would have failed a long time ago. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a cast steering arm bend on anything. I've seen knuckles fail, but always in other places, and for other reasons. I've been beating on this steering for about 6 years now, mostly at the hammers and haven't had any kind of issues, other than wearing out ball joints from jumping the thing. Regardless, the kits I'm building for the XJ will be using tie rod ends, not heims.
 
BTW, I totally see what you're seeing there. I actually had to go out and do this again to check, just to verify that I'm not crazy LOL :wow:
 
Back out to the shop to finish this piece of the puzzle. Took some measurements and spun up a drag link. Unfortunately one of the TRE's had a manufacturing defect and it wouldn't thread in all the way, so it's not yet driveable but it is good enough for testing fitment.

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You'll notice that I cut an extra long set of wrench flats in the passenger side of the tie rod. There's a reason for this. All of the steering kits out there that use a straight tie rod have the same problem, the tie rod hits the track bar bolt when you turn hard to the right. There's not really any way around it, however I like to do as much as possible, so I strategically placed the wrench flats in that area to allow just a little more room. I'm also planning to swap out the stock track bar bolt for one with a smooth button head. Between these 2 little details I think I'll be able to get nearly full steering swing. If it works out the way I think it will I'll be supplying a button head track bar bolt in the production kit.

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Any plan to mitigate the dead spot inherent in lifted rigs with inverted T steering?


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Good question, the simple answer is yes. It's something I've examined pretty closely in fact.

There are a couple ways of doing it, but the option I'm exploring is simply supplying better quality parts for the application. Pretty much everyone else supplies a set of tie rod ends with their kits. Problem is they are supplying whatever they can get cheap. Notice that nobody advertises what brand of TRE they use? I decided up front that if I was gonna build a "premium" kit, I was only going to use premium parts rather than adding profit margin at the expense of quality. In this case, all the TRE's I'm using are MOOG problem solvers. Apparently this is one of the problems MOOG is trying to address with their "Problem Solver" ends. The boots MOOG supplies are very different from the normal TRE rubber boot. They have a super thick bushing molded into them that takes up all the space between the steering arms on the knuckle and the TRE, basically the same thing the other guys are adding in either polyurethane or delrin and selling as wobble stoppers. In this case I'm using 3 TREs that have this super thick "bushing" boot, which I'm hoping will help with the dead spot.

There's another spot I examined as well though. For some reason all the other kits are using a high angle drag link style end for the joint that connects to the tie rod. Normally if you were connecting to the knuckle you'd need this kind of joint because of the angles it sees, however since the joint is rotated 90 degrees in this setup you don't need that extra movement. All of your up/down angle is now simply rotating the joint, rather than flexing it. What happens with a high angle joint there now is that the extra TRE flexibility is translated into more roll of the tie rod, which is felt as a dead spot in the steering. I instead used a Tie Rod style end at that point, which is more limited in its travel. Since this end is more limited in its motion it also limits how much the tie rod can roll. It also comes with the bushing style boot described above to further limit unwanted movement.

I'm hoping that the combination of selecting the right parts for the application and putting them together properly addresses the dead spot issue as well as possible. The whole reason I bought this MJ was to test stuff like this out. Worst case scenario I'll supply wobble stoppers like everyone else, but I'm hoping that isn't necessary.
 
StinkyFab said:
There's another spot I examined as well though. For some reason all the other kits are using a high angle drag link style end for the joint that connects to the tie rod. Normally if you were connecting to the knuckle you'd need this kind of joint because of the angles it sees, however since the joint is rotated 90 degrees in this setup you don't need that extra movement. All of your up/down angle is now simply rotating the joint, rather than flexing it. What happens with a high angle joint there now is that the extra TRE flexibility is translated into more roll of the tie rod, which is felt as a dead spot in the steering. I instead used a Tie Rod style end at that point, which is more limited in its travel. Since this end is more limited in its motion it also limits how much the tie rod can roll. It also comes with the bushing style boot described above to further limit unwanted movement.
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im not entirely sure thats how they intend it to be ran...

the high angle TRE has larger taper (well technically the same taper, just deeper) as a normal GM tie rod. so you really cant mix them up. i put the high angle TRE at the pitman arm and a normal problem solver at the tie rod. i had considered going to a true crossover steering and getting rid of the inverted T... but with assist, tie rod roll is really a non issue.

side note:
i can also vouch for the problem solvers having a significantly different boot. i noticed this as well.
 
VAhasnoWAVES said:
im not entirely sure thats how they intend it to be ran...

the high angle TRE has larger taper (well technically the same taper, just deeper) as a normal GM tie rod. so you really cant mix them up. i put the high angle TRE at the pitman arm and a normal problem solver at the tie rod. i had considered going to a true crossover steering and getting rid of the inverted T... but with assist, tie rod roll is really a non issue.

side note:
i can also vouch for the problem solvers having a significantly different boot. i noticed this as well.
Click to expand...

I can't explain why, but a lot of companies are supplying 2027L and 2026R TREs for the drag link. These are both high angle TREs so it's not like people are putting the drag link on upside down. You are right about the taper, but since the hole in the Tie rod has to be machined larger no matter what it's clear they must simply be tapering them out to the proper size for the ends they are using.

I am not going to name them, because I find it distasteful to criticize competitors directly, but there is at least one major company out there that specifically states that their passenger side Tie Rod end is machined for a 2026R end, which in my opinion is not the one to be using in that spot.
 
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Got the last part in yesterday and finally got this thing off the lift and took it for a drive. I'm really happy with how it came out, and I'm looking forward to putting some miles on it.

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Since I had the wheels off I also had some fun test fitting a set of 33s I picked up a few days ago. I'm totally digging the big tires with no lift look, but I'd have to do a lot of trimming to be able to steer like this.

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Been driving the Lab Rat around a lot lately, and letting a few others drive it as well to get a feel for things. Cal took it for some hot laps around the neighborhood and did some burnouts in my yard :laugh: We all agreed that it was ready to send to the masses so the SFR Premium 1-Ton kit is now available http://www.stinkyfab.com/steering-components/sfr-premium-1-ton-steering-for-jeep-xj-tj-zj.html

I also put together a quick introduction video to highlight a few of the key features that set this kit above the rest. Take a look and let me know what you think. Also note that we're running an introductory special pricing as well, so get your orders in soon!

 
Nice kit, was searching for one and decided on synergy kit! But I loved the aluminum issue!
My question is, I have a hydro assist kit from agr, would I be able to mount the hydro assist piston to the aluminum link?


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We haven't worked out all the details on the OTK kit yet, which is why ordering is still disabled on the site, but I'm pretty sure the sway bar links will need to be moved. The UTK kit is pretty straightforward and doesn't really require modifying much, so it's a great kit for the average wheeler who isn't a fabricator or custom builder. OTK requires reworking a bit more in terms of track bar geometry, and cutting/modifying other things that may interfere. Therefore it's really more of a kit for someone who already kinda knows what they are doing and who is willing to do a little work to make it all fit.

I will be doing an OTK install soon enough, and will document what I find, but it's likely that those going OTK have already done some other mods that will effect how things fit.
 
So here's an interesting one for you guys to pick on. The Lab Rat came with the most basic gauge package I've ever seen. I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about, a speedo and a comically large fuel gauge, and some lights. I can't deal with that. I at least need a temp gauge, so I grabbed another cluster, and the appropriate senders for oil and coolant, and installed it. Pretty simple, and now I have full instrumentation, however my fuel gauge is pegged way past the full line, all the way to horizontal. Obviously this is less than ideal as well. I was under the impression that the fuel senders were all the same, and this cluster is from the same year truck. What gives? Anyone have any clues?
 
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