The Silver Fox LJ Build
- Thread starter JMT
- Start date
When I removed the rear Rancho shocks they were both totally shot. Gotta do something! Not sure on my timetable. What’s going on with this weather? Just now getting cold over here. I’m aiming to do the outboard ASAP.
I am excited to hear how your tuned shock experience goes with this outboard, it's hard to really understand what "predictability" means with shocks and wheeling until you feel it. It really ups the wheeling game a surprising amount.
We were colder here this past week than we have been, but that was still only around 30. I can't speak for up north.
Tahuya probably wouldn't be worth the drive over unless you just wanted to check it out and do something casual. There's stuff to play on, but all short trails and obstacles. I've never been to Reiter or Walker.
Reiter and Walker are the only two I’ve been to!
Reiter is better. A lot more to do.
Yeah, Walker was pretty boring. The open gravel pit area has some hill climbs and some rocks IIRC. The trails had like one kinda difficult spot that wasn’t difficult..
In the pic from your post, are there some gussets above the plate welded to the frame for more support?
Why does it need more support?
The load is very small on the crossmember that is holding up the rear half of the drivetrain. The tab is well over 4" long out of 3/16" steel bar stock. When the crossmember flange is bolted to it in 4 places, that brings the thickness up to 5/16" and creates a unitized piece. In order for the tab to move or dislocate in any manner, it has to bend into an S or 2 bends, 1 right at the frame just outboard of the end of the crossmember flange and then again on top of the flange.
It would take a very high amount of force to bend the tab on the frame between the end of the crossmember and the frame. That is a very short span with a very high resistance to bending. You will damage a lot of stuff beyond repair if you manage to inflict enough mayhem on the skid to shove that crossmember up high enough to bend that tab(s) any appreciable amount. Gussets there are what you do when you don't understand how anything works.
If you are going to weld them, I'd encourage you to stop welding as cold as your body mounts show.
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