• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

midarm 3 link bracketry and assorted questions

DeftwillP

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Round Rock TX
So I've been looking building a mid 3-link like a few others have done and particularly like the simple look that 2doorxj did on his in the 44's and a 3 link thread.

I've got HDO frame stiffeners and was looking at the heavy duty link mount for the drivers side and the dual frame link mount for the passenger side. I'm having arms built out of 1.75x.281 DOM that are direct threaded for 2.63 JJ's. I know that most would say that this is light but with shorter arms and my weakass wheeling, I'm not too afraid.

So for questions:
Plate the frame horns and passenger inside rail with 1/8"? 3/16"?
22" lowers and 23.5 upper to position front axle back in stock location? (Obviously this depends on where I weld the mounts in but do those numbers look and seem about right?)
That bracket will only yield about 3.5" of frame side separation, good?
Assuming a 7" above centerline link tower, it seems like my upper will be angled upward instead of level. Again, good?

I've got plenty of other questions but they'll come to me later.
 
You might have a hard time fitting a wider joint for the upper frame side, unless youre willing to do some exhaust modifications. Personally i run a 7/8s RS heim on both sides, those heims are still %100 tight, compared to the lowers which ive been through 2 sets already. I have no doubt the 7/8s is strong enough for a mild XJ application.

I would definitely plate the inside of the frame on the passenger side. i still have yet to do it ( im too lazy), but if youre going to be building it, you might as well do it. 1/8 should suffice.

I dont remember my exact arm lengths, but i know theyre shorter than that.

Ive noticed no ill effects of only having 3.5 frame seperation, the suspension works awesome, but someone more experienced than me should chime in on that.

With 4.5 RE coils, and my 7'" of axle seperation, my upper is 100% level at ride height, and the lowers are pretty flat as well
 
If you used the same bracket in question, why does it matter if a 2" or 2.63" end is used? The bracket still takes up the same amount of space.
 
and my 7'" of axle seperation, my upper is 100% level at ride height, and the lowers are pretty flat as well

this is where your good characteristics come from, 7" axle sep is my minimum requirement

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1060299

here is the build thread on her jeep, her crossmember is mounted to the hdo stiffeners and the suspension to her crossmember.... i am not a fan of that ballistic dual frame mount, double the load and decreased weld surface area. if your doing it to the frame plate the inner rail and run the hiem or joint horizontal like the rk setup. stonger than that dual bracket crap, i ran one in the wag and wasnt super pleased, i had to strengthen it alot. Also were running 3/4 heims in the upper and have had 0 issues, i carry spare joints but the originals are still tight as a drum

FWIW the barnes 4wd brackets are high quality and seem to "fit" better in an xj package
 
I used the same brackets and also narrowed my upper mounts. I did. 4 link so I did both uppers a d that was the only way to package it all. My Heims are all bad 7/8th and 1.25....
 
this is where your good characteristics come from, 7" axle sep is my minimum requirement

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1060299

here is the build thread on her jeep, her crossmember is mounted to the hdo stiffeners and the suspension to her crossmember.... i am not a fan of that ballistic dual frame mount, double the load and decreased weld surface area. if your doing it to the frame plate the inner rail and run the hiem or joint horizontal like the rk setup. stonger than that dual bracket crap, i ran one in the wag and wasnt super pleased, i had to strengthen it alot. Also were running 3/4 heims in the upper and have had 0 issues, i carry spare joints but the originals are still tight as a drum

FWIW the barnes 4wd brackets are high quality and seem to "fit" better in an xj package

I was hoping you'd chime in, the suspension set up is essentially your design. You really cant beat it for ease of building, and bang for your buck. That being said eventually id like to go through the floor with the upper link mount, cause thats what all the cool kids do, and id like to build it stronger.
 
I was hoping you'd chime in, the suspension set up is essentially your design. You really cant beat it for ease of building, and bang for your buck. That being said eventually id like to go through the floor with the upper link mount, cause thats what all the cool kids do, and id like to build it stronger.

i just let hers self clearance.... there a perfect radius in the floor the upper made...fits like a glove ;)
 
mid arms are dumb, who does that :eyes:




if you go thru my build thread, youll see how I did mine. I plated the inside of the rails with the same 3x3x3/16 angle iron I used on the outside of the rails. my arms lengths are close to yours, maybe a little bit longer. I like to shoot for at least 8" on the axle and 4" on the frame for seperation.
 
So I guess that even for milder wheeling, 3/4 heims are out of the question for the upper.
 
You might have a hard time fitting a wider joint for the upper frame side, unless youre willing to do some exhaust modifications. Personally i run a 7/8s RS heim on both sides, those heims are still %100 tight, compared to the lowers which ive been through 2 sets already. I have no doubt the 7/8s is strong enough for a mild XJ application.

I would definitely plate the inside of the frame on the passenger side. i still have yet to do it ( im too lazy), but if youre going to be building it, you might as well do it. 1/8 should suffice.

I dont remember my exact arm lengths, but i know theyre shorter than that.

Ive noticed no ill effects of only having 3.5 frame seperation, the suspension works awesome, but someone more experienced than me should chime in on that.

With 4.5 RE coils, and my 7'" of axle seperation, my upper is 100% level at ride height, and the lowers are pretty flat as well

Why doncha get on out there and measure your arms? :pbbflipoffsmily:
 
No way....hers are 3/4 and we beat it like it owes us money. The breaking force they are rated for is like 9 times the weight of the jeep

I can vouch for this.

lots of high speed full throttle crawling. Sam learned from Doug how to wheel, but does it with even more rev limiter.
 
here, have some pictures of my crappy jeep.

i worked off these numbers back when link calculators were cool.

20250_507037373144_1487126_n.jpg


lower arms use 7 year old rockkrawler joints on one end that are awesome and crappy ballistic joints at the body end.

upper was just 7/8" heims. With misalignment spacers this works out to be 2" wide and generally runs a 5/8" bolt. and guess what you can buy at harbor freight!

2" hitch tubing and ALREADY HAS A 5/8" HOLE DRILLED FOR YOU!

27535_lg.jpg


to get decent link separation I just hammered my floor in a bit too.


heres an overall shot without an axle in the way. I rotated the upper mount a bit so you can still get to the nut on the other side. without it being a pain in the balls.

20250_507037288314_1735794_n.jpg


heres a cool picture of some painted booger welds. I did add a gusset later between the body and link "tower" if you want to call it that. (it began to crack, been fine since the 2 minutes of work to put the gusset in there)

20250_507037283324_4356321_n.jpg


heres an arm. put the shock mount on it because I felt like it.

20250_507037258374_2152699_n.jpg


lower link mounts were simply ruffstuff chassis link brackets

20250_507037248394_4251452_n.jpg


another shot of the chassis link bracket setup

20250_507037163564_6569493_n.jpg


overall view of errything. you can see the separation i got here

20250_507037158574_4168614_n.jpg


doing a little dancing

20250_507037243404_6472440_n.jpg
 
I was waiting on your pics Ktm, including "air flecks". They've been down for a while.

It does look like your upper is significantly shorter though. No pinion issues? Love the cheap HF tube idea. Used at both sides of the upper?
 
I was waiting on your pics Ktm, including "air flecks". They've been down for a while.

It does look like your upper is significantly shorter though. No pinion issues? Love the cheap HF tube idea. Used at both sides of the upper?

they were down because i was an idiot and thought facebook was the perfect place to host pictures. problem is they change the urls on you at random. In the process of putting everything on photobucket lol.

Upper link is about the same length as the lowers. While the upper link mount on the chassis is more towards the front of the rig than the lowers, The lower links mount on the axle behind the axle tube, while the upper mounts directly above the axle tube.

I did use the harbor freight hitch tubing at both ends of the upper
 
Back
Top