Front end work

[R.J.]

thats in process, but it takes a long time to cut out all the little pieces to weld on. and with school and work, things might slow down again.

 

[R.J.]

doing a mock up

 

[Dannyboy]

Robbie, I think I read somehwere that the damage prone spots on this axle when beat really hard are the ears by the ball joints. Ask Brandon or somebody who can clarify this, but from what I saw you will need to beef it up all the way out as close as possible to the ball joints.

 

[R.J.]

i didn't really think that it was weak there, i just put the plate cause i thought it looked cool hahah. i figured plating it there was more for beams that were widened between the ball joints and the radius arms. i don't have a big enough peiceof metal to cover your green section, so maybe ill run more than one peice there. but my would i really be able to break that?

 

[R.J.]

i looked bak on page #2 of this thread, some of the beams are plated all the way to the b/js and other aren't. the camburg ones don't have plate up that far, but the solo ones do

 

[IZwack]

This might be of interest to you -- a hybrid D35/D44 project
Hybrid D35/D44 TTB axle build - OFN Forums

 

[R.J.]

kopycats b2?

 

[R.J.]

hmm i've never heard of that site, but i should've done the plating on the bottum of the pumpkin like his, with one long piece, instead of three little peices like i did.

 

[CopyKat]

kopycats b2?

Yup

With all the research I have done main reason for plating is to strengthen the area that was cut and widened. I was also told that the upper balljoint mount likes to rip off. Never seen one but I plated it up anyway.

Make sure you round off as much as you can. You want to stay away from welding across the beam section. This will help eliminate stress points.

Here is another pic of the plating I did on mine. You've seen the painted ones already.

 

[IZwack]

Oh is that your thread on OFN KopyCat?

 

[CopyKat]

Oh is that your thread on OFN KopyCat?

Yes the pictures are in my build post here too.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1902945#post1902945

 

[R.J.]

Make sure you round off as much as you can. You want to stay away from welding across the beam section. This will help eliminate stress points.

what exactly do you mean? you mean i don't want to weld square corners or i don't want to weld straight perellel with the beams? or i don't want straight perpendicular welds on the beams?

 

[CopyKat]

Round off the corners where it gets close to the diff. Make them all close to the same.

I got my buddy to lay an extra pass on the upper ball joint clamp. Since I needed to remove a layer for D44 ball joint boot clearance.

You going to leave an opening for your radius arms? or you going to build new ones?

 

[R.J.]

dang it i like things square but whatever's best for the beams i gotta do. i'll round it like the drawing.

the radius arms will fit, its just gonna be a pita to get them on

 

[CopyKat]

dang it i like things square but whatever's best for the beams i gotta do. i'll round it like the drawing.

the radius arms will fit, its just gonna be a pita to get them on

For what it's worth I plated with 1/8" steel. There would have been no way I was going to be able to spread my rad arms 1/4" to get them on. The ears would have cracked off in short time. If I was making new ones then I would of just made the opening bigger at the beam end.

 

[R.J.]

i've been searching around and a lot of 4x4 beams have square ends on the plating, not say that round isn't better, im just observing.

radius arms, ill cross that bridge when i get to it.

 

[Josh S.]

Keep it up bud

 

[IZwack]

i've been searching around and a lot of 4x4 beams have square ends on the plating, not say that round isn't better.

[babble]
I know it may be too late in your design/execution but for future readers, round is better because the sharp corners are stress concentrations. Rounded corners are critical especially around the ball joint areas since there isn't really much material (steel) to work with -- forcing the designer to optimize the material by dispersing as much of any applied stress over as large of an area as possible.

Somewhat parallel to this, is the reason why critical machined step-downs (or "notches" or "shoulders" such as on an axle shaft, or a spindle) should always have a fillet radii (inside corner).

But having said that, I think you'll be fine and I'm on the same boat as you, I do prefer to look at sharp corners .

[/babble]
(Attached image from 'Engineering To Win' by Carroll Smith)

 

[R.J.]

i've seen a lot of beams with square corners, but i'll try to make all my pieces rounded

well i gave some thought, and now im thinking about cutting off the "tabs" of my radius arms and welding some new ones on, at the same time spacing it so that i would lengthen tha arms a bit to move the front wheels forward maybe 2"s

the arms are just stock extended so i want to just weld plates on top of them and it would make up the 1/8" difference from the plating on the beams. do you get what im trying to say?

 

[R.J.]

hmm i thought i resized them smaller