Arizona Rock Crawler
- Thread starter starkey480
- Start date
The pic doesn't show the story. The crack is actually at the edge of the weld in the start of the HAZ. It goes perfectly perpendicular to the face of the frame and when it eventually cracks out if left alone, it will look like you took a laser and went around the edge of the weld to remove it.
All he has to do or would if he was going to leave it there is get the edge of the weld clean, and throw a nice bead in that has the crack as the middle of the fillet. It won't be any better or worse than the way the factory did it and the only way to stop another failure of the exact same type at the edge of the new weld is to brace the back of the mount over to the opposite frame rail.
I'm not disagreeing with your assessment, I'm just relating what I know after having repaired many of them and seeing the failures on the trails.
That makes sense also I'm guessing this is a known failure point. I'm curious, do you know if that is cast iron or cast steel?
Mine cracked in the same spot and at the webbing a few years ago. I repaired it as Blaine suggested, prior to moving the mount forward on the frame as part of a stretch. At that same time, i added a brace to the opposite side frame rail.
On this topic and your recent design thread, I’ve been wondering about your current avatar. Is that a frame side front track bar mount? If so, that seems stronger/more durable than stock. Using a fully captured heim joint in that orientation makes more sense to me for that purpose.
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Clean self removal you say… this sounds tempting
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I often get tire size envy since everyone I wheel with is on 40s+. It’s hard not to. But it’s always good to bring things back to perspective. I was talking to one of my buddies that’s been out here wheeling in the AZ scene for a long time now and has been through a million jeeps and buggies with various tire sizes. I was telling him about yesterday and he made a comment about how much he likes my build strategy because he can see I get more smiles per dollar than anyone else he knows.
That was really cool to hear and a good reminder that regardless of the level of build you have, we are all out there just trying to have some fun.
That was really cool to hear and a good reminder that regardless of the level of build you have, we are all out there just trying to have some fun.
That's the main reason we build the way we do out here. Sure I could build bigger, but the 35" platform is a hell of a lot of fun. Going to 40's would make challenging trails less fun and would really limit us to a handful of trails in our area that would be challenging. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I could come up with all sorts of new fun but it would certainly be limited.
If I lived in socal and JV was in my back yard I would probably be in a buggy. There, it's for the extreme wheeling challenge, and Colorado is more for the moderate challenge and scenery. Everything else in between such as Moab or Sand Hollow are bonuses for us with a bit of travel. Most everything we do here is out and back in a day.
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Yeah 35s are just plain fun and relatively inexpensive. I’m sure I’ll get bigger some day but for now the plans are to keep enjoying the heck out of 35s and keep improving the driver
Agreed. I have a blast with my TJ on 35's even though I still have a ways to go with it. I am usually the smallest rig on the runs I do, but I can hold my own.
I find myself wishing for more wheel base more often than bigger tires.
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101 ish. Currently at 93”. Probably 7” out the back and 1” out the front
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Perfect! Exactly the LCOG build I’m going for
Well I guess now we know what is s worse than an angry grille
