So the past few days, I haven't been feeling my traction bar actually working... So today I decided while I was on break, I would take a look under the truck and figure out what was going on. This is what I found:





Cause?

The main nut for the joint was welded to a sleeve, that sleeve was welded to another sleeve to adapt to a larger tube... This was done at all 3 ends. I was making due with what I could in the shop at the time, before the term ran up.

Solution?

I just don't have the time next term to cut the brackets off at the axle, so I'm going to either get a thick schedule tube and thread it so the joint will thread right into the tubing, eliminating all the adaptions, or I'm going to go with a tube diameter just large enough to get the main nut in the tube to be welded and not grind it all so thin this time. I really pushed the thickness down at the joints, and I pushed it too far, just so it would look pretty cool.

Long story short, learned a lot and had a fale. Oops.

 

oops lol

 

See what that mean 4.0 can do. Lol

 

There's your problem, right there.
Good luck on the new version, interested to see how it looks.

 

lack of pen?

 

or too much? I am not a fan of smoothing out the welds. I prefer to create that fillet on the material and fill that fillet.

Seems like when you grind or smooth that much away it just makes it weaker. Though I have no proof of this.

Looks like it was pretty hot when welded, might have made it brittle.

 

i have to agree, do not like smoothing welds on critical joints...especially anything to do with suspension/safety.......

can you imagine if the forward rod end failed as well and pivoted down like a pole-vault pole........

l8r, John

 

well one of the back joints would have needed to fail for it to swing down.

 

grinding down a weld weakens the weld..it takes away from the weld..i would of left it -- just make it look good :)

 

you can run the weld hot you just have to be quick. keep in mind though, too much reinforcement on the weld can also prove detrimental. if you can run an 1/8" reinforcement (or cap) around the joint you should have nothing to worry about. don't cook the pipe though. if your weld turns out lumpy and just doesn't look good you can smooth it out just don't take away too much metal. i would leave atleast a good 1/16" of reinforement around the joint if you don't, you're just defeating the purpose of the weld. hope that helps some.

 

thought that was one of the back joints....the little shackle hanger normally is at the front....

either way, my point is to not "clean up" a weld just to make it "pretty" to the point of making it fail

l8r, John

 

just works as a strange looking suspension link now haha

 

None of this matters he cant read any of it. Hes "banned"

 

I thought so but how did he make the thread then? its only a day old

 

he made it right before he was canned i think.

 

Oh, I though he was banned like last week

 

Why not use some .250 thick DOM tubing and buy a few weld in bungs from trailgear or ballistic? This would be the right way to do it. Then just thread your heims into the weld in bungs. Or am I missing a reason why you can't? It'll be much stronger this way and I doubt it'd ever break...

 

your buddy came over did burnouts in your garage, drank your beer and knocked up your wife?? HAHAHA!!!!! sorry couldnt resist!!

 

perma ban or just temp?

 

ask RICK he was the one who did it.

 

perma, trevor needs to learn how to control himself, if it is not going his way he is pretty upset and vocal about it. gets ya in trouble in a hurry.

 

then he must be a angry individual, because life never goes how you want it to!