That's some impressive work you did. Changing the leaning end bolt to a low-profile flat bolt was a great touch that proves you're always after the most gain you can get.
What size, thickness, tubing are you using for the cross-member?
Alex01 Silver Sport Build Thread
- Thread starter Alex01
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That's some impressive work you did. Changing the leaning end bolt to a low-profile flat bolt was a great touch that proves you're always after the most gain you can get.
What size, thickness, tubing are you using for the cross-member?
2 pieces of 1" x 2" x .120 wall rectangular tube. Top weld is continuous ONLY to keep water out. The total 4" width is ONLY done to have enough front to back width to weld in tubes for the nuts and studs on the trans mount and get a socket in. That was done that way to keep water out of the tubes.
Seems easy until you figure that the crossmember for the trans is in a narrower part of the frame so you have to calculate leverage against the bushings to try and figure out how to get them fairly equal in response. I've done quite a few similar to the GR set up shown without a single failure and no rear support with the Atlas cases.
Yes,you would also need to space them the same distance.Or just make the rear support strong enough so it can be stiffer and take the majority of the load.
At this point Alex probably shouldn't be putting much on that busted mount anyway.his pics show what happens when you ask the trans mount to do that and apply the kind of torque he is laying down.
I am going to venture a pretty well educated guess that there is something else we are missing that caused that failure. This one and many others done very similarly on 40" tires doing JV level trails fairly often have never failed and had they ever done so, I'd be the first one saying don't do it that way.
My best guess is that when I welded the GR cross-member, I likely welded it too hot and weakened the metal. Over time the stress cracked the weld which led to the cross-member breaking in half. After that the stress of only having half the cross-member and the skid holding the transmission / TC in place the cast aluminum was the next point of failure. Had I caught it when I was looking for the noise at Fordyce or when I got home from the trail the trans mount would possibly still be there. When looking over the jeep I saw that 2 of the bolts that held the oil pan skid to the TC skid were missing so I dismissed the noise for that and continued forward.
Goes to show that if I hear something weird not only should I be looking at the easy-to-see stuff but also the stuff that requires me to take some parts off.
The only difference between you and how I did it, is mine has not broken. No one ever accuses me of cold welds. That and mine see a bit more torque from the bigger tires. But, all things are possible. Another data point is I rarely use 1.5" for the big tube, it is typically 1.25" with 1" .120 wall out to the frame.
Based on the pictures, I don't think your weld broke, but the tube broke right at the edge of the weld. Most likely it has nothing to do with the heat input & everything to do with the weld profile.
Thanks for the input. Looks like I got something else to Google and learn about.
Anyone happen to know if you can still purchase internals of a rubi rear locker. Mine have seen better days.
That's a bummer. It seems like such a cheap part compared to a whole new locker. I'm probably going the Eaton route then so that I do not need to figure out how to plumb the York into an ARB.
At least I got 9 years out of the thing. Do you happen to know if the blatter off the rear will fit the front? If it does, I figure I should hold onto it as a spare.
Replace both and keep your spare rubicon parts for me.
It may, in fact, be less cumbersome to do both. I’d guess the other one is on borrowed time.
That looks like the LSD broke apart, as all of them eventually will. That was why I replaced mine with an ARB. A few years later, as part of a regear, I also replaced the front with an ARB. I doubt that I needed to. But it had been a noisy sloppy differential for the 150k miles that I had it.
I was paging thru the parts for sale and saw these:
Thread 'TJ Rubicon Stock Lockers'
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/tj-rubicon-stock-lockers.84463/
Thread 'TJ Rubicon Stock Lockers'
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/tj-rubicon-stock-lockers.84463/
Yep... And I've been really good about always having the rear locker on when going on any dirt road as @mrblaine has mentioned in the past to prolong its life.
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