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Heavy duty steering arms

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:35 am
by TRobbo
Bent the crap out of my standard steering arm on the weekend. After an hour or so we had it repaired sufficiently to keep going. Was thinking of fitting a heavy duty arm but when you strengthen one thing additional stress has to be passed on to something else, so where does it go and does it result in breaking something that will
a) be really expensive (steering box)
b) leave you stranded if u dont have spares (steering knuckles/steering box)?

Any comments? and who has busted steering knuckles or steering box sector shafts and were you running a heavy duty arm at the time?
thanks

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:33 am
by Ossie
I was running Mal Leslie's HD sterring arms (cheeaper than Maxidrive) in the OBC last year. I broke two tie rod ends, and improved a pitman arm so that it had a touch more play than normal.

Jason

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:50 pm
by TRobbo
Ossie wrote:I was running Mal Leslie's HD sterring arms (cheeaper than Maxidrive) in the OBC last year. I broke two tie rod ends, and improved a pitman arm so that it had a touch more play than normal.

Jason
Thanks Ossie, from your experience it would appear my suspicions are correct :bad-words: - any one else had similiar experiences?

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:50 pm
by TRobbo
Ossie wrote:I was running Mal Leslie's HD sterring arms (cheeaper than Maxidrive) in the OBC last year. I broke two tie rod ends, and improved a pitman arm so that it had a touch more play than normal.

Jason
Thanks Ossie, from your experience it would appear my suspicions are correct :bad-words: - any one else had similiar experiences?

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 3:30 pm
by landy_man
no problems here...
I run the Rangie Spares HD rods..
Never had a problem YET with anything else breaking...
I think if you absolutly thrash you rig i.e. OBC etc.. you may very well break something..
but just for "normal" bush use I am sure you will be fine.. most damaged is casued by hitting the rods on rocks etc.. so the HD arms will resist the bending more..

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:03 pm
by walker
No problems here. After constantly bending arms I welded a piece of angle onto the steering arm and it has bee great ever since.

Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 9:05 pm
by Snarba
Same here, I have welded angle iron on my steering arm and drag link and have not bent anything since and I run 38's

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 7:22 am
by TRobbo
starting to sound like I dont have to worry about adverse stress transfer from a reinforced steering arm... :D

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:06 pm
by Rangie ute on 38''
same thing with my old 38'', when i had them fitted my first run on them resulted in a bent steering arm, so i sleeved the drag link, panard, and front steering arm 3 times with heavy wall tube, then ive run 10 x 25mm flat bar along the top edges. ther big :cool:

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:45 pm
by TRobbo
Rangie ute on 38'' wrote:same thing with my old 38'', when i had them fitted my first run on them resulted in a bent steering arm, so i sleeved the drag link, panard, and front steering arm 3 times with heavy wall tube, then ive run 10 x 25mm flat bar along the top edges. ther big :cool:
they must be bigger than standard trailing arms :lol:

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:39 pm
by Snarba
Rangie ute on 38'' wrote:same thing with my old 38'', when i had them fitted my first run on them resulted in a bent steering arm, so i sleeved the drag link, panard, and front steering arm 3 times with heavy wall tube, then ive run 10 x 25mm flat bar along the top edges. ther big :cool:
Hey dude...we're talking about the same set of tyres :D

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:29 pm
by justinC
let it bend, let it bend... cheaper than a sector shaft/ sector shaft needle rollers, drop arm, all the tie rod ends. etc etc etc.

At least you can straighten the standard arms, try staightening a re inforced one if it bends....

Just a thought.

JC