Churn Creek & China Head july 2014

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Nice pics...

Interesting carnage and fix... what happened?

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Craig had some issues which if they happened a corner before or after on the winding road down to Big Bar he would not be with us anymore. He lost all steering and breaking when the front axle almost ripped off his truck. Over time/terrain the weak design of the aftermarket link system showed itself by giving up and it ripping the brackets off the housing. Steering linkage, front driveshaft, stabilizer bar (and disconnects), shock absorbers and the link all were severely damaged. This was the only real solution to get him off the mountain and eventually home.
This was the best case of a worst case scenario.
 
i hate to kick anyone when they are down but this sort of failure is just unacceptable no matter if its a jeep thing or not. dont know Graig but hopefully he is thinking of switching brands.
 
It's Craig. The aftermarket kit that was installed in his truck to change it from a factory 4 link to essentially a 2 link with a track bar and a half link to keep the diff at the right angle is about 8 years old (from what he told me). It is also discontinued by the manufacturer, we can only assume why. Looking at the quality of brackets and the overall design it was weak, and only a matter of time. Just finished talking to him and the upgrade/repair option will be a lot stronger. The weak link was the add on brackets that were supposed to replace the factory 2 links and give added articulation. 1/8" thick steel brackets don't do well with off road abuse of a vehicle locker front and rear. They would have been fine if he just hung out in mall parking lots and did the occasional gravel road trip once a year. In this case, it wasn't a Jeep thing, it was an aftermarket option thing.
After some more digging around it turned out that he wheeled for about 3 days with the cracks, just didn't notice it when he was inspecting the truck at the end of each day. The steering was off a bit but the suspension seemed ok.
A good thing to do on any wheeling trip, inspect the truck at the end and beginning of each day, not looking for anything specific but keeping an open mind to anything. Again, in hind sight, we could have spent the time checking over Craig's Jeep after he mentioned he noticed the steering wheel position shifted. He said he looked at it and didn't see anything weird, but no one else confirmed it or double checked. We should have. One of us might have seen the fractures and cracks the others didn't.
Another lesson learned. Luckily he made it home.
 
Fantom said:
Craig had some issues which if they happened a corner before or after on the winding road down to Big Bar he would not be with us anymore. He lost all steering and breaking when the front axle almost ripped off his truck. Over time/terrain the weak design of the aftermarket link system showed itself by giving up and it ripping the brackets off the housing. Steering linkage, front driveshaft, stabilizer bar (and disconnects), shock absorbers and the link all were severely damaged. This was the only real solution to get him off the mountain and eventually home.
This was the best case of a worst case scenario.
Click to expand...
good works mat nice to have some one handy and get things going in no time.
 
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