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Radius arm setup w/ a twist?

C

csudman

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Statesville, NC
Its been talked about alot on here and Ive never seen it employed. A RE Style Long arm w/ a pinned passenger upper arm. Seems easy enough to build, would have better road manners than the Rockkrawler lift. But unpinned it would be just as flexy. Gimme your thoughts.
 
I think a pinned upper arm on a long arms setup would act more as a safety feature and have little to no impact on the day to day handleing. In order to put the pin in by hand the hole will have to have a relatively large amount of "slop". Since driving on the road won't induce near the amount of caster differential in comparison to off-roading I'd say the pin would rarely do much work.....unless of course the other UCA broke. It would be a safety feature for those who aren't comfortable with only one upper arm controlling their axle.
 
you'd have a bolted drivers side upper, and a pinned passenger side that could be removed easily?

that's whachhoo saying?

sounds like a winner to me.
 
Beezil, Exactly. Sorta, I was acutaly thinking of making the passenger side a slip style joint in the middle. Pinned.

And I also think it would give you overall better travel offraod. Is this not correct?
 
I dont know if you will really gain anything.I run dual uppers and the only thing limiting flex is my shocks and brakelines.Yeah ,I could get more but who needs it.Id spend ny time getting the rear to work better!Droop is great if it is carrying weight,after that its fluff!
 
By using one upper, you will save your UCA bushings 2x over. The upper arms fight each other when flexed out and that murders the UCA bushings. I ruined a set of UCA bushings wheeling at Tellico during the Cherokee Crawl.

AARON
 
MrShoeBoy said:
By using one upper, you will save your UCA bushings 2x over. The upper arms fight each other when flexed out and that murders the UCA bushings. I ruined a set of UCA bushings wheeling at Tellico during the Cherokee Crawl.

AARON
Click to expand...

You should give CRS a call,theres probably not much they can do about the design your running but they might make good with some new bushings.This is definately the type of input they need for the future!
 
RCP Phx said:
You should give CRS a call,theres probably not much they can do about the design your running but they might make good with some new bushings.This is definately the type of input they need for the future!
Click to expand...

The design was mine more or less to begin with, I just didnt have the skills by myself to create it, so I got CRSU to help me (Hense "Built with the help of" in the sig). It was an XJ prototype set up for them and a cheap set of long arms for me:) Like I itch your back if you itch mine. The current long arm kit they sell fixed the bugs that mine has. I think my problem is using RE adjustable uppers that has a JJ where it attaches to the long arm end instead of rubber.

AARON
 
Aaron, you're saying that an upper using a bushing instead of a JJ on the longarm mount would rid your arms of rapid bushing fatigue?
 
The only trouble I see is the suggestion of making the quick release halfway along. You cant pull back either end like a swaybar to release it. What do you then od with the loose ends? The axle end you might just be able to do a hitch pin arrangement. Maybe with enough lift you could tie up the arm without removing the other end so long as the bumpstops have been lowered. But what about the frame end? Could you do a similar arrangement there with a hitch type pin setup? Would it rattle like some disconnects though? The setup has merit as the greatest forces would be braking hard from freeway speeds than from slow rock crawling I would think.
 
Economos said:
Aaron, you're saying that an upper using a bushing instead of a JJ on the longarm mount would rid your arms of rapid bushing fatigue?
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe that the JJ on the UCA doesnt allow for any give so all the binding force is being applied to the rubber UCA bushings on the axle. Look at the RE long arm kit, it has rubber for the UCA bushings. Claytons kit has rubber for the UCA bushings, or at least the few kits that I have seen.

AARON
 
I currently have a longarm/radius arm setup but with only one upper arm. I'll be swapping my suspension from the XJ to the MJ and at that time I'm going to try and come up with an additional upper arm that I can remove for the trail.
 
Gojeep said:
The only trouble I see is the suggestion of making the quick release halfway along. QUOTE]

I understand what your saying. I think you might have a point. My origanal idea was to simply have the holes line up on level ground. At any other point they probably wouldn't line up. This was my origanal idea because of the easy of pinning/unpinning. I guess you could pin the upper and lower mount, but I think that would be more difficult to reinstall after wheelin. Keep em coming.
Click to expand...
 
To realign it after wheeling may be troublesome, but I don't mind chalking the tire front and back then attempting to move in whichever direction I need to make it line up. Works in the driveway and garage.
 
Now this is just thinking outside of the box, but what about running a steering damper (valved 50/50) for one of the uppers. I've had this idea running through my head lately, for my long arms next year. As I said before, thinking outside the box:anon:.
 
I know that the radius arms on early bronco's are differnt than that on xj's long arm mods, however bronco's have had these pinned radius arms for years and they are pretty easy to pin and un pin for the trail and they add tons of flex on the bronco's that I wheel with.

To be honest I think that if you design the long arm well enough originally than you probably do not need to disconnect at the trail, but if you really want to go that way I would really look closely at the bronco style of arms that are pinnable.

Michael
 
I already suggested this damper design and was shot down ohhhh....4 months ago. We're talking about wristed arms correct?

I think that a damper with several jundred lbs of resistance/ cm/sec. could give enough support as an arm, w/o the binding of a rigid arm. it would allow plenty of flex off road.

the downside is that they're expensive...

my approach is to let someone else try it and then jump on the wagon...:)

-J
 
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