Track bar ?? need opinions!

I've been replacing my drag link and tie rod with some beefier stuff since I bent the heck out of it in Moab last June. Tonight I was putting the finishing touches on it and noticed that when the wheel was turned the track bar appeared to give off a cracking sound. I had the track bar bracket welded this morning as it had some cracks. The noise appears to be from the axle end. it's a Rusty's track bar. The rubber bushings don't (shouldn't) appear to be worn but that sure seems to be where the noise is coming from. its somewhat hard to tell exactly. I don't see any movement on the axle end but a little on the frame end. Doesn't seem to corealate with the noise.
What do you think? thanks, Danno

Dan, the noise can easily radiate to another location. All the popping sounds I've had (many times) came from the track bar mount being loose on the frame. I've tightened the bolts more times than I can count, and finally welded it to the frame. First I put a couple of small welds on the inside lip, since the inside bolts were usually loose. After awhile the outside was loose even with the inside welded, so I welded to outside too......no more getting loose and no more creaking/popping.

Coincidentally, I have now cracked the stock track bar mount for the third time. It just cracks from stress, not on a seam or weld. It is currently cracked, and I was going to grind off the welds and replace it with a real beefed up piece, but now I think I'm going to leave it on and just beef the heck out of it. I don't want to have to re-fab the alterations made to my stock mount so the joint is mounted horizontally, or modify an aftermarket mount to be strong enough for my application.

If you have the Rusty's track bar with the tie rod end at the frame I would suggest upgrading to the heavy duty end with a poly bushing. This will give you a much beefier frame bracket, and the bushing is a lot more solid than the tie rod end. Your front end will feel alot firmer over bumps because you won't have the play in the TRE. Another thing I did to firm it up is I bored out the poly bushing so the inside diameter of the bushing went to 3/4". Then I installed some thicker spacers (3/4" O.D. 1/2" I.D. 1 9/16" long) and bored out the axle bracket to accept a 1/2" bolt. Since doing this the track bar has not made any noise, has not come loose, and the front end feels very solid.

Something else to consider, when you install crusty's track bar, he has you re-use your stock bolt for the axle end connection, but the sleeve inside the bushing on the track bar is larger than the factory bolt, which allows the track bar to slide around inside the axle mount. Go get you a grade 8 bolt and nut, that fits the track bar sleeve perfectly, then drill out your axle mount holes to fit the new bolt. Two notes though, 1)make sure you don't get the new bolt too long, because it can bottom out against the axle before it gets tight, and 2) my axle mount holes had ovaled themselves out so badly that I didn't even need to drill them out, the new, larger bolt just slid right through. So, between the sleeve being too big, and the holes being ovaled out, I had ALOT of play at the axle end, which not only caused noise, but also poor handling.

That crappy little sleeve is the reason I bore out the bushings and installed a thicker sleeve. Now there is a solid piece of steel to bolt the axle bracket to, rather than a flimsy piece of metal sleeve. Also the thicker sleeve allows for alot less play in the poly bushing.

Common

I have seen a few busted Rusty-brand Trac bars, and it is always the same place, axle end. Sometimes the little metal sleeve flexes itself apart, sometimes the entire end unwelds and kinda 'unwraps' on you at a bad time. The RE HD track bar is a nice piece and works well. I use a Tera Track bar, because its tough and I like the adjusting sleeve, which allows me to change the length without taking it off of the frame or axle.
My $1.07