Colinb17's kinda sorta build thread - now with 4-link and long travel

only to protect the strongest part of the diff gotta hand it to all pro on this one. they seem to have the most sensible production diff skid out there.

i have some small 1/8'' lca skids that a former member on here tossed together for me and just about gave me. after denting one of my lower arms, i figured why not.

 

You managed to dent a lower huh? I have banged on my LCA's with just minor scratching but I apparently haven't dropped down on them hard yet. haha

I'll have to look up that all pro diff skid. I've been hesitant about the BAMF one because I seem to be enough of a rock anchor as it is...

This one right?


Know of anyone with pics of it? Would be nice to have something like that on the front side as well to protect the driveshaft flange.

 

I think the all poo skid is only for the 8" offroad diff...not my 8.4 sport...

 

Yup for elocked folks only...

 

a half hour with a grinder and welder, and you could have an all pro style skid made from scratch.

however.....
there really isn't a need for one. the front and bottom of the stock 3rd/axle housing is pretty darn strong. the rear is the only place that is "fragile", short of some irresponsible reversing, even the rear is hard to dent too bad.

Brady, the best way to protect the driveshaft is to 1) don't use a one piece and 2) run a traction bar that sits close the the driveshaft and is made out of heavy enough material to act as a rock slider of sorts for the DS. i believe MJP2 and jandrews have/are running similar setups.

 

If your not going to weld them to the LCA then yes, waste. If you are using them like TC designed them for (welded to the LCA) then I can see some good coming from them. The others who are selling them with tolerances so far away from the LCA that they can't be used for welding = super waste IMHO.

They sure look cool to people who have no clue though

Mike I think has bars on both sides of the shaft with a skid and Jason only has one with no skid - if my memory is serving me right

 

mine are contoured to the curves of the LCA, so i litterally only lose the 1/8'' of clearance, with exception the the bolt heads, which are pretty much ground right off anyway

That's right, didn't mike start with a single traction bar? i do remember his full skid now though. and unless jason changed something up, he still only has the one side. still very effective on a flatter topped rock though.

 

John still has only the single traction bar that ATO did.

 

I have a 2 piece and I would like to add a traction bar for that reason (but even that won't help me enough apparently )

Oh and 3) (the one I really want to do next but haven't...) Is to get some shims and slap them between the leaf pack and the axle to rotate the pinion up a little higher. I think this is my biggest issue. I don't know if the TSB leafs with an AAL are this way, or if they have just settled this way, but mine almost seems to be tipped down slightly and seems to really expose my drive shaft to the rocks.

Not sure if you've seen my drive shaft mishaps in my build thread, but the last one I killed, not even having a trac bar on both sides of the drive shaft would have helped... not without a skid plate across them anyway. And I'm not sure but that might cause articulation problems...

I'm uploading the video now. Give me a few minutes. haha

 

you use a combination of bushings and johnny joints on the traction bar, so articulation isn't an issue. Wyatt also ran a traction bar now that i think about it, up until he 3-linked the rear. he had issues with ripping the welds that held it the the axle, but there was a lot more force in his scenarios....

 

so you guys are saying that the bamf lca skids are pointless?? im confused. i thought this was a point on the truck that is fairly susceptible to damage and one would need these skids to protect the lca and alignment cams??? have i just been bamboozled with propaganda?

 

Steal from monster trucks....

 

the majority of material on a bamf or total chaos lca skid is geared toward brotecting the bottom and leading edge of the lca, both of which are already very strong areas. so the skids effectively jsut reduce ground clearance in those areas. the problem with the bamf ones is that even though it's 1.4'' (i think?) steel for the tab that goes in front of the cam tabs and bolts, it is extremely weak. that's no fault of Jerry's, but simply due to the fact that there is no way to strengthen that area of the skid without interfering with some other part of the truck. the result is that that portion of the skid jsut gets bent back when you hit a rock with it, and then you're left with 1/4'' plate rubbing on your forward LCA bolt whenever the suspension moves. the underside of the cam tabs are also left unprotected, and that is the most vulnerable part. again, no fault of jerry's, just design limitations set by the motion and mounting of our lower arms.

that's meant to catch pieces of the drive shaft when it breaks, and keep them from taking out other parts of the truck, as well as keeping people in the area, and the drive safe. won't do much to protect the driveshaft.

 

I see, that makes sense. I wasn't sure if you could get enough articulation if you bolted a skid plate between the two though.

I haven't checked them out in person, or really looked at them much, but no the factory LCA's are pretty tough it seems. It really helps that they are so close to the tire and move up with the tire as well.

Bulhas told me he got the skids to protect his LBJ's, but if you are running a decent backspaced wheel that shouldn't be an issue. I have 4.5" BS wheels and my LBJ's are tucked inside the wheel pretty nicely.

Wow! That is quite the contraption!



So here is the vid, Youtube and photobucket were giving me problems... Pretty pathetic wheeling on my part here... So ignore that haha At about 1:12 you'll see the whole vehicle shift and I land right smack on top of my drive shaft... The way I hit that ledge when it shifted, the only way a trac bar would have saved me, was if it was on the passenger side and hung several inches lower, in which case it would have prevented the shift.

http://s176.photobucket.com/user/BradyT88/media/VID_20130630_204605_671.mp4.html

 

LCA cam tab damage multiplier in my mind. Supposedly he changed his design after I saw what happened to one of the first sets and PM'd him about it, but what I saw was a joke. The front of the plate was 1/2" from the LCA so as soon as you bumped a rock the thin ass bolts sheared and it fell off. I haven't seen a newly designed one yet, but from what I remember the GB list was looooooooooooooong.

One of the reasons I do not buy from people not trail testing their items themselves. A mall crawler wouldn't even notice but my buddy wrecked his on day 1 and I think Collin was there to witness it

danger.... all I see is hang up danger

 

here's mikes driveshaft skid

 

hmmmm wonder what he's doing with it when he changes over to a 9" rear....


PM sent

 

if we're talking about then yeah, i saw the unfortunate result of what can happen to them even just between breakfast and lunch.

 

half inch wall drive shaft and ditch the skid

 

Bingo

I saw the carnage after - at his house and just

Then I Pm'd Jerry after I saw it and he told me he would look into it...that was 06-20-2012, 11:03 AM so if you got them before that meh....and if you got them after that maybe meh