Radius arm make over | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Radius arm make over

I've decided to try and see if I can get some kind of flex out of my set up so the plan is to sleeve my current radius arms with 1 3/8" ODx 7/8" ID .250 wall DOM and put 3/4 heims on the ends.
I've fabbed up some brackets from 3/8" plate steel and I ended up changing my design so I had to use the material I had already bought for the project. It would have been a lot easier to use the main plate coming off the frame with some 2 1/2" square tubing with a tab coming off of the bottom but oh well.
The radius arm brackets will mount just behind the tranny X-member with 4 bolts on the side and 2 on the underside of the frame. I'll eventually make a removable crossmember to tie the radius arms together.
I got all the heims, heim hardware and DOM tubing fron spidertrax.com. They have these heim dust boots i'm gonna try out too...couldn't hurt.

So here's some pics...first one you'll see what i have to work with on my truck. That radius arm is hanging there on it's own and if I put some weight on it, it doesn't go down much further if at all so you can imagine what that's doing for flex or lack therof.
Next pic is a template of the main plate i'm working from and the rest of the pics are the finished brackets ready for paint.
 

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more pics

I'm gonna work on getting these mounted today and i'll try and pics of that.
 

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Very nice work sir... You wanna make me some? :)
 






What about your lift height and springs? too stiff for your Ranger?

Those brackets look sick, nice job!
 






Thanks guys!
Trckmagik,
I can send you the dimensions of the template if you want. If you have access to a plasma cutter that would make the job a whole lot easier, I went through 10 cut off wheels on my 4" grinder :eek: If I were to do it differently i'd use 2 1/2" square tubing like I mentioned before then cut a tab
that matches the the profile of the bottom half of the main plate. So in other words you'd only have to cut 2 pieces instead of the 5 like I did :confused:

410,
For now I'm gonna keep the ride height as is, I really like having the space that i have now between the diff and the engine crossmember. As for springs, I'm looking into Fox's new 2.5" air shocks...they are supposed to have twice the weight capacity as the 2" but I need get more info on them.
I figure if i can get some decent flex out of it after all that, it will make up for the tippyness it had.
Here's a pic of the radius arm mocked up and ready for welding.
 

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Dave, what's the before and after length on those arms?

Brackets look pretty F'n beefy! :thumbsup:
 






The original stud on the arm ends roughly about halfway through the tubing so they're about 6 or 7 inches longer than what I started with.
 






Where are those radius arm from. They look like a hybrid Superlift arm for a stock TTB with solid dana 44 c bushings on the end.
 






Those arms are from the infamous Fabritech kit...you can't see it too well in the picture but I moved the shock mounts from above the arm to the side so I could fit a longer shock (as well as longer shock mounts on the frame).
 






good looking work Dave. I think we have talked about doing something like that for how many months now :). Anyway, hurry up so I can use your welder :D LOL.
 






I got the holes drilled for the brackets and welded up the extentions on the radius arms. Tomorrow everything will be installed and i'll get some pics up.
 






Hope everybody had a great X-mas :D

I finally got my rig back together and i can actually use 4wd now! I took the truck out for a test drive in a dirt lot by my house and broke in the new gears in a little. i went to flip the hubs and I must have left the pass side locked when I installed them because when I flipped it into 4hi, I could feel that nothing was happening in the front so i got back out to check the hubs again and sure enough the pass side was unlocked...doh! :confused:
As for flex, it's not a whole lot better than before but that's because of the stiff TTB coils and I knew that going into the build. The arms have freedom of movement though so the potential is there. I'm happy with the way it turned out though and i'm glad I did it.

Here's a pic with the arms installed:
 

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Very nice.......
 






DB_1 said:
As for flex, it's not a whole lot better than before but that's because of the stiff TTB coils
All this time you've hadd TTB coils in there!?! :confused: Didn't that Fabritech kit come with new springs? How about some Wild Horses 3.5" VR coils?
 






The Fabritech kit allows you to use your existing TTB coils so i'd have to do some modifications to the bottom retainers to fit the wider EB coils as well as replace the coils buckets which is what I was going to do originally but now i'm looking into air shocks...Felix has my WH coils now :p
 






Very nice Dave! Now I just need a beater to drive and lots of money so I can start mine! :D
 






Stic-o said:
Very nice Dave! Now I just need a beater to drive and lots of money so I can start mine! :D

Thanks Stic-o...as for your SAS, all in due time :thumbsup:
 






Looks really good Dave. Now I just need to get my self back into gear. You think you are ready to do that extention mod to my radius arms after truck haven? :D
 






Hey Dave Duff has there 3.5 progressive coil, I'm thinking of going with these.

5107.jpg


+ there only $117 bucks ;)
 



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Sure Felix,
but i'll let you do all the cuttin' :p

Stic-o, I've heard good things about the JD and the WH progressive rate coils but I'm gonna try out the new Fox 2.5" air shocks, all I have to do is zap some tabs on my spring pads and make some shock hoops so I figure that'll be a little easier than getting the coil buckets/shock mounts to work plus they'll flex as good as coilovers.
 






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