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Steering Box Brace

Considering how popular these are on full size Dodge trucks (I've had mine for 5 years,) I'm still surprised that nobody is building these for Jeeps commercially.
 
Brace looks great!

So there is 2 options here-

1)Steering box brace that goes from the passenger frame rail over to the clamp on bracket to the steering box- Like M.O.R.E., and others

2)Steering shaft brace- as built here by NCCherokee

I guess my question is- Which is needed? Does the shaft ever fail?
If you brace the box, then the shaft can still move.
And if you brace the shaft- the box can still move.

Are both type of braces needed?
 
Beefer often moves the stress point from one place to another = better at the beef, worse not at the beef.
These are unibody vehicles. The stresses were designed to be distributed throughout the body. Every time you strengthen one area, you increase the stress point in another. You may or may not experience a failure base on where the new stress point is and the forces it experiences. Without doing a Finite Element Analysis of the change, you really don't know what is better or worse. Repair is not much different but may be less of an impact and based only on the change of the metal crystalline structure if heat is used.
 
sjx40250 said:
Beefer often moves the stress point from one place to another = better at the beef, worse not at the beef.
These are unibody vehicles. The stresses were designed to be distributed throughout the body. Every time you strengthen one area, you increase the stress point in another. You may or may not experience a failure base on where the new stress point is and the forces it experiences. Without doing a Finite Element Analysis of the change, you really don't know what is better or worse. Repair is not much different but may be less of an impact and based only on the change of the metal crystalline structure if heat is used.
Click to expand...

There probably is some quality merit to you points. That said, we know that XJs have ripped at the box on the frame rail, we know that some box braces have caused fractures on either the passenger or the driver rail. Might as well give it a shot with a different style. On my jeep I have a rigid bumper up front, then the steering race when completed, then the RE trackbar, frame bracket, and brace. So there are three frame to frame hard mounted stiffeners in the front 3 feet of the frame rails. I imagine any stress points are gonna be moved even further down the rails, and maybe to the point of the frame stiffeners. If and when I add TMR front frame stiffeners I'll have no concerns over stress risers on the front half of the frame.

What I didn't realize when I cut the frame brackets is that there is a third threaded hole on the frame about an inch up from the swaybar brackets. I assume it is for different engine tranny tcase combos. Anyhow you could capture that hole with the bracket and have bolts total holding it on and spreading the load. Then if you add a riser to pick up a bumper bracket bolt like I will do, then you can have 8 or more holding it on which I'm sure is overkill, but since when have people worried about overkill when beefing te unibody (other than weight differences between 1/4" - 3/16" - 1/8")
 
What I've realized is that wheeling an XJ on 35's in the rocks is going to destroy your steering box, one way or another. My stock box had play in the sector shaft and I replaced it with a rebuilt YJ box tapped for assist. Now the YJ box has tons of play in the gears apparently because I can turn my steering wheel a few inches without the pitman arm moving.

Should have gone hydro assist a long time ago like I had planned. Hopefully it eliminates the slop somehow.
 
With mostly road duties and 33" tires on a D30 I'm not really close to going to hydro assist. Besides, for less than $100 in materials and wire I have a nice patch that will correct one of the known weaknesses for the foreseeable future.
 
Maybe, and I plan for it to be there someday, just not while I am in residency.

Here is the completed brace. You can see the small strap I added to each side to catch the bumper bolts. Maybe overkill, but with how far back the brace bolted to the swaybar bolts I wanted the added insurance.
1347029159.jpg


Here it is bolted up
1347029176.jpg


Here the bearing block is bolted up
1347029199.jpg


Completed and ready to roll. The bearing is about 3" below the bottom of the bumper, maybe 2" below the lip of the crossmember.
1347029236.jpg
 
Nice work. If you hit it, you've got worse things to worry about.
 
Just measured.
Bottom of bumper is 26.5"
Bottom lip of x-member is 25.25"
bottom of brace 24.75"
bottom of bearing 23.75"


Didn't measure the steering shaft before the new nut was on, but the new nut is probably only 1" longer than the sector shaft, so I really only lost about an inch, but I'm not concerned about it.
 
Yes thesector shaft fails. This past weekend on the Dusy Ershim trail, my box ripped off the frame friday, stripping 2 of the bolt holes in the box and shearing the 3rd bolt. Fixed it with longer bolts and nuts on the back, plus a u-bolt around the front of the box through the body. After a broken rear driveline and a broken long side shaft we were towing/ 1 wheel driving it out and the sector shaft sheared clean off. Heading back up after work with a new box, new rear driveline, a set of yukon chromos for the front hp44, a generator, welder, and plate as the frame is also cracking around the box. Ram assist and a sector shaft brace just moved way up on the agenda.
 
Subscribing...........
 
Damn, that brace is bling! Time to upgrade that tie rod though. Your box will stay together and on the frame, but the tie rod will be a pretzel in no time.

zachandandy said:
Yes thesector shaft fails. This past weekend on the Dusy Ershim trail, my box ripped off the frame friday, stripping 2 of the bolt holes in the box and shearing the 3rd bolt. Fixed it with longer bolts and nuts on the back, plus a u-bolt around the front of the box through the body. After a broken rear driveline and a broken long side shaft we were towing/ 1 wheel driving it out and the sector shaft sheared clean off. Heading back up after work with a new box, new rear driveline, a set of yukon chromos for the front hp44, a generator, welder, and plate as the frame is also cracking around the box. Ram assist and a sector shaft brace just moved way up on the agenda.
Click to expand...

Good Lord, any bumper plates or anything around the box? Use grade 8 bolts? If you go ram assist, that should take all the force off the box and sector shaft.
 
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