I broke my truck in Moab. One of my steering knuckles broke in half.


The high steer and hydraulic assist was just too much stress for the stock Dodge knuckles so I picked up a set of Ried Racing (formerly Dedenbear) knuckles. The Sky arms I had were already drilled for the 5th stud so installation was fairly simple once I got the extra studs.



My transfer case adapter to transmission bolts came loose again too. This is the 3rd time this has happened since I installed my new engine crossmember. I installed the DIY4X crossmember because it used the round poly bushings for the motor mounts rather than the stock style since I kept breaking the stock motor mounts (even when I upgraded to the OEM style poly mounts).

I talked to Steve from ORD about the problem (I noticed it was leaking when we were loading it on the trailer after the 17 mile recovery). We decided that the poly mounts on the motor and transfer case were not allowing enough flex and as the frame twisted while crawling it was breaking those bolts loose (luckily it didn't break the tail of the transmission off).

Here are shots of the engine and t-case crossmember for reference.




The transfer case crossmember was one of the first things I fabricated for the beast (3+ years ago) and it worked great until I installed the new front crossmember. It's a serious pain to tighten those bolts too. You have to drop the two transfer cases (250 lbs) and then tighten the bolts and put everything back together.

The new crossmember bolts directly to the frame and has 4 poly bushings mounted towards the center to allow more movement. I put 2x3/4" bars inside the frame that I drilled and tapped for the crossmember to bolt to. The crossmember itself is made of 1.5" .250 wall square tubing. The way it's designed should also strengthen the frame as it's adding a beefy crossmember that is solidly bolted to the frame rather than being attached with poly bushings.





Hopefully this fixes the problem of the bolts loosening.

That looks sharp, man.

Nice work bro

Dang.

Think you'll get enough flex with the poly bushings?

There's always johnny joints....or old fashioned rubber ones

With how close the poly joints are (5.5" on center) the 1/8" or so flex they have should get me enough rotation to keep all the driveline bolts happy.

The flex I need is the actual squishing of the poly bushings so Johnny Joints would actually be worse since there is less poly there. If I need more flex I can pull the bushings out and drill some holes through them to soften them up, but I think I'll be OK with the way they are.

That's really cool and it was an interesting read, but I like the trailer better


Seriously, I didn't know you went to Moab?

quote:

Originally posted by System-F:
That's really cool and it was an interesting read, but I like the trailer better


Seriously, I didn't know you went to Moab?

You should read all the forums on here
http://nissan4wheelers.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/119603133/m/13910874641

I get the part about relocating the bushings, but what is with the rubber sandwiched between the crossmember and the frame? Is that some sort of pseudo iso mount? What keeps THAT from loosening? Or, is that a steel plate spacer?

The pictures show two different mounts. the one with the isolators at the frame is the old mount which he replaced.

Sorry. I was referring to this one:

thats not rubber, it's a giant washer/nut that goes inside the frame. Its what the bolts thread in to.

quote:

Originally posted by Reserector:
I get the part about relocating the bushings, but what is with the rubber sandwiched between the crossmember and the frame? Is that some sort of pseudo iso mount? What keeps THAT from loosening? Or, is that a steel plate spacer?

Drip hit it on the head. Those chunks of steel (3/4x2x12 cold rolled steel) have 3 9/16 holes drilled and tapped. Those chunks go inside the frame and the crossmember bolts to that sandwiching the frame between the "nut" and the crossmember. The idea is to spread the stress out to prevent from tearing the frame.