Well, the Rogue Roo's went out wheeling today. Had a good ol time. But the Brat went down. It still has a problem keeping the struts in the knuckles. This turned out to be a serious downfall. I'm crawlin up a hill, off camber, big ditch. The passenger side knuckle comes off the strut and drops down. No problems while the tire is hanging, but as soon as the tire touched the ground, rotating force of over 150 LBs of torque multiplied by 60 times is thrown into that hanging knuckle and tire assemble, the tiny ball joint on the bottom of the knuckle of course couldn't handle almost 10,000 pounds of force being applied to it, and snapped, flipping the knuckle upside down, and bending the tierod. I've got video of whot it looked like, and there will be pictures up soon. Quite impressive!! Was definatly something else to see the caliper on the front!! Had to wait for parts, did a lot of sittin today, but all in all, it was a good day wheelin.

Ouch!! Are the bolts for the strut/knuckle threaded all the way to the bolt head or just part way? Reason I ask is that I've seen the wrong bolt(ball joint bolt) installed in the knuckle. It tightens down but doesn't get tight enough to hold the knuckle to the strut.

Oh yeah, it's the right bolt. And the "clamp" of the knuckle is all the way down, the metal is touching. My Brat is just telling me that it doesn't like struts, have to admit, neither do I. Hmm, back to the drawing board.

I got a grade8 and lockwasher and so far no problems. I am thinking about welding a stronger tab though.

But damn we had a great time

-Sean

Yup! My gold wagon did real good for no lift, and no welded dif! Will be fixing all that soon enough

try limiting straps

to keep the suspension from drooping down that far...

just a idea

Yeah, he put some on as a trail fix But he will have permenatn fix for it very soon

heres what i got before by batteries died.

As long as you are breaking stuff, at least go all the way!

Bummed I missed the good time. I was busy with Easter stuff. Next time hopefully I will be able to meet some of you guys and hit the trails. I have my wheels and tires, just need to lift it. Looks like a trail run with some good stories :-) I'm sure Adam will come up with a good fix.

 

 

Ken

Two words:

 

MULE TAPE!!

have you welded an extension onto the strut? I started to do that but decided to use a spacer instead on top of the strut...... one thought would be to take a die grinder and make slot just a little bit wider on the un threaded side, then it might clamp tighter. if you made the slot wide enough, you might be able to weld a tab on the strut tube that sticks through the slot with a hole drilled and clamp bolt through the hole and tighten.? i would probably try the later of the two. not that any of my ideas would ever work

Nice! Looks like art!

Did your brat come with a front sway bar? They kinda work like OEM limiting straps

 

If you wanna keep the travel gained w/o a sway bar might wanna look into the above idea of limiting straps on the control arms.