how-to:wristed passenger arm

[91ROKKRAWLER]

well when i was going to do my 44/9 swap i decided i wanted a wristed passenger arm. i started building it and then started talkin to a buddy on here and decided to trade my axles for his 6" lift with extended arms. so i'll go ahead and build these and do my swap later on.


1) get a set of arms that you wanna cut up. use only one arm...

2) grind the rivets off that hold the shock mount on

3) cut the head off of the arm

4) round the edges off

5) my first mistake on these arms is that i thought i could get away with 16G steel... DO NOT USE ANYTHING UNDER 1/4" STEEL!!!

6) then i moved up to 3/8" plate steel

7) cut the steel with a oa or plasma, smooth it off and set it onto your arms for fitment

8) at this point you can cut another piece to set inside the arm on the head side, your choice.

*i didn't get any pictures from here on in so i'll just talk you through it.

9) then you wanna weld up your tail side of the arm and put some 3/4" bolts through BOTH holes on the head side.

10) take the shock mount that you grinded the rivets off, and flip it so the shock side is closer together, weld that back up.

11) your arm should be done and when you take the bolt closest to the tail off, you should be able to gain QUITE a bit of extra articulation.

(these are froaders pics)

 

[Tbars4]

...Nice write up....What yr/model are the arms from???..:scratch:

 

[91ROKKRAWLER]

79 f150

 

[FROADER]

Before I got to the bottom pic I thought, "Hey, that looks just like mine."

Nice write up.

 

[91ROKKRAWLER]

do i get more elite time for this?

 

[FROADER]

I'll forward it to Rick. If he thinks it's worthy, then I'm sure you'll get some.

 

[Jarubell]

I hate to ask a dumb question, but what does this mod do?

 

[IZwack]

I hate to ask a dumb question, but what does this mod do?

It wont help unless you're doing a solid axle swap -- what it does is relieve the "bind" that results on a radius-arm solid axle during "flex" as the two arms fight each other trying to twist the axle in opposite directions. The same "bind" exists in the infamous Jeep radius arm setup with two "Y"-looking arms:

This does not help in a stock TTB (91-94 Explorer) because the two axles halves are independent of each other where they mount.

 

[91ROKKRAWLER]

like i explained it to my buddy....

put your arms out and hold onto a stick or broom or somethin. keep your wrists straight and drop each side like your suspension would drop the axle. now do the same thing but bend your right arm so it can flex more and keep the right caster.

and yes this only helps with a solid axle with radius arm geometry

 

[Jarubell]

thanks, I was also wondering about those Y shaped ones.

 

[91ROKKRAWLER]

y shaped ones?

 

[91ROKKRAWLER]

the axles that these bolt onto have a cast or welded wedges on them. those arms bolt up to the wedges with a bushing between them

 

[94 Crawler]

Hey guys how abought school me on welding mild steel to the forged steel radius arms.