Solid Axle Swap BS Thread

How are the exo's coming?

 

Yeah it is a weird design. But it is a beast and well built!

 

What saw is that?

 

Got the axle side mounts on and 1 of the links welded up. Having a blast

 

more dangerous than mine?

 

What do you guys think? I know it's not as strong as welding on double shear plates, but better than single shear for sure. 3/8" steel plate.




Still need to drill the hole for the draglink. The lower portion is where I will try and mount my HA ram instead of the usual clamp on the tie rod. My links are a little too close together for that, and I'm not a fan of welding on tabs to the tie rod.



Gonna snipe off the excess corners.

 

The only thing I would worry about is breaking off the brake caliper tabs. The steering arm gets its strength from the flat surfaces of the arm and knuckle clamped together, you lost a lot of that strength. You would be better off putting it in double sheer by welding a bent plate to the bottom of the steering arm and boxing in the outside as much as you can.

Edit: I re read it, I would not mount the ram down there and try to get it mounted to the tie rod somehow, or get an arm somehow on the lower bearing cap.

 

thanks. I was thinking about that too. I wish FROR would make arms for the lower cap. Would be awesome.

 

I would call them, you never know!

 

They do make flat arms, so could probably put them on the bottom.
But I'm probably gonna try as is tho. It still has all the strength of the single shear and steering arm, so it's not like all the force is being put on the ears. And the ears are 11/16" thick. I'll look at mounting the ram somewhere else tho. I'll probably end up welding tabs to the tie rod. It's 1.5" diameter, 1/4" wall DOM, so I'm not worried about the tie rod too much. Nothing is welded together yet, so we'll see...

 

Actually, these steering arms are keyed onto the knuckle. The arm is plenty strong. It's not like I'm gonna loosen the knuckle studs, so I'm not losing strength, I'm adding to it. Really I'm just trying to brace the end of the bolt a little and make it look safer for reconstruction inspection, even tho it already has safety misalignment spacers.


Like I said, it won't be as strong as a real double shear, but it's better than this:

 

Is it common for guys to do double shear set ups with toyota based axles? Honest question, I really don't know much about toyota straight axles,..and I have have not notice when/if guys tend to do double shear set ups with them.

 

No idea. The AP kit came with tie rod ends 1.25" steering links, so what I'm doing is probably overkill. I mainly put the links under the arms for clearance, but even with the safety misalignment spacers, I don't like the way it looks and the recon guys might not like it either.

 

How exactly did he lose strength by adding an additional mounting plate? He has the strongest arms you can get for a mini knuckle and the only reason for adding the double shear is because of the heims. There is no loss in strength and it won't be transmitting the majority of force through the brake tabs.

 

I've seen quite a few both ways and usually single shear holds up fine, but the extra insurance is always good to have.

 

I'm talking about only mounting it off the brake caliper tabs. Yes the tabs are thick, but they weren't designed to the side loaded by a HA ram. You lose strength as opposed to an arm off the lower bearing cap.

Who knows it may work, but if that broke it would suck. Run it and see what happens.

 

Added in some bigger coolers. Had to get creative with the over flow bottle

 

Love it!

 

Question on flanges. I'm planning on sticking with my stock flanges on the driveshafts, which means I need new flanges on the D60 and 14 bolt. All of the flanges I'm finding are only listed as being compatible with up to '95 year model trucks.

I obviously need to measure my flange bolt pattern to verify, but does anyone know off the top of their head which flanges will work.

FYI - 94 Ford D60 and 2000 14 bolt

Oh, and parts are starting to roll in.

 

Don't fuck around just call Jess at high angle drive line and he'll hook it up.