My New Front Arms (1 Viewer)

[concretejungle]

I heard the same thing. Hell, those arms, especially with the axle flexed, cause some serious stress at that point! Something to consider if trying to make your own.

 

[sleeoffroad]

Don't know, found pic. Looks to be home fab arms and other stuff?

Kevin, just to clear things up, the pic with the axle twisted is not our arms, correct? It does not look like it.

The 2nd pic shows one of our earlier arms that Brian made (Outback). Yes, there were a couple of beaks but none of them caused damaged as show in pic one. As far as I know. For that to happen, both arms have to fail.

I wheeled a trail in Balck Hills one night with a broken arm on one side without knowing it. I knew something was stange, but did not discover the break until the next morning.

From what I've been told there are at least three versions of Slee arms? The first were Outback/Slee, some had wrist joints at the chassis bushing, don't know who made them? They had some issues, the pic below is of a local, Mud member's arm, will leave it to him to claim it or not.

Second were tubular Slee units, none with the wrist. I haven't heard of any failures.

Third the currant solid machined arms, good luck breaking those heavy units!

Yes, that is pretty much the summary of them. The couple of failures in the 1st gen arms were exactly the reason why we ended up with machined arms out of a single piece.

Bottom line is if you run welded arms, inspect them often, especially if their the early type.[/QUOTE]

 

[sleeoffroad]

Dang, it took me a second to figure out where the parts were supposed to be. That doesn't look like very thick tubing on the arms.

Anyone know what size tubing Slee uses in their arms? Or if they are solid?

Our latest arms are solid machined pieces. Earlier arms were 1/4" wall chromoly tubing. In all cases we had a cracks in the weld and not a tubing failure.

 

[clarkrw3]

Thanks Christo!! good to know....On a side note don't the 3g arms (machined ones) have a greater caster correction then the second gen?

 

[Tools R Us]

Don't know, found pic. Looks to be home fab arms and other stuff? ...

Kevin, just to clear things up, the pic with the axle twisted is not our arms, correct? It does not look like it. ...

I don't know the history of them, but they don't look like any others that I have seen. My guess is hand made/home fab.

Carnage is cool, but that's not the reason for the pix. If your going to modify and wheel your rig just about anything can break, the responsibility is on you to inspect, maintain it to minimize breakage. Looking at the pix, the welds have rust in them, were cracked long enough for rust to form, in AZ rust doesn't happen overnight, so could have been found before failing.

 

[Dusty]

i still say the easiest way to do the 3 link is to cut the front endmost bushing retainer off the oe arms. discard these pieces completely. what you have left is a basic pair of lower links that clear the tierod.

now weld a basic tower on the pumpkin. because the lower arms are made from modified oe arms they are low enough that the tower doesn't need to be high-a 4" lift spring would be plenty to clear the tower in this case.

weld a link mount to pass side inner fender and make the pass side upper link the exact length of a rear lower arm which are plentiful. thus you dont even need to fab an arm for the upper link-just use an extra rear lower link. make sure to get the pinion angle right the first time.

this could be built easily with the axle still on the truck

there you have it. a $75 three link you can do in a saturday

 

[Land Speeder]

i still say the easiest way to do the 3 link is to cut the front endmost bushing retainer off the oe arms. discard these pieces completely. what you have left is a basic pair of lower links that clear the tierod.

now weld a basic tower on the pumpkin. because the lower arms are made from modified oe arms they are low enough that the tower doesn't need to be high-a 4" lift spring would be plenty to clear the tower in this case.

weld a link mount to pass side inner fender and make the pass side upper link the exact length of a rear lower arm which are plentiful. thus you dont even need to fab an arm for the upper link-just use an extra rear lower link. make sure to get the pinion angle right the first time.

this could be built easily with the axle still on the truck

there you have it. a $75 three link you can do in a saturday

Holy crap. I really like this idea. Cattywampus may be getting this once I find a trailer to haul it...

 

[Tools R Us]

i still say the easiest way to do the 3 link is to cut the front endmost bushing retainer off the oe arms. discard these pieces completely. what you have left is a basic pair of lower links that clear the tierod.

now weld a basic tower on the pumpkin. because the lower arms are made from modified oe arms they are low enough that the tower doesn't need to be high-a 4" lift spring would be plenty to clear the tower in this case.

weld a link mount to pass side inner fender and make the pass side upper link the exact length of a rear lower arm which are plentiful. thus you dont even need to fab an arm for the upper link-just use an extra rear lower link. make sure to get the pinion angle right the first time.

this could be built easily with the axle still on the truck

there you have it. a $75 three link you can do in a saturday

It will work, on a rig with little lift/caster correction, but those rigs flex relatively well, so not much gained?

Lift say 4" and caster correct, the tie-rod will be very close or touching the arms. Cycle the suspension up and down, the axle/caster angle changes with the arms, tie-rod to arm clearance stays close to the same. Remove the front bushing bolts and simulate an upper link, now as the suspension is cycled the axle/caster angle stays the same with travel and the arms swing up and down in relationship to the tie rod.

On my setup (~5" lift), even with a caster correction bushing installed upside down to lower the arms as much as possible, the arms hit the tie-rod before even stock radius setup amount of droop. The stock arms just don't have enough clearance to be used for anything but radius arms. It will work, but the droop travel would have to be severely limited, so what would be the point?

 

[Bikeman]

How about get the Slee Hi-steer kit and move the drag link to the front, and hope the panhard bar stays parrallel? Looks like you'd have to nail all the geometry right and how/where would the rear upper link mount? A new crossmember? Clearance ok for the oil pan, exhaust, etc? Sounds very interesting since I have to do something soon to correct my castor all the way, like buy Slee's control arms.

Edit: saw Dusty's and Action Jackson's pics and that answered most of it.

 

[95ToyCruiser]

Kevin, what exactly is the difference in this setup over simply doing the "trailer hitch mod" other than correcting the castor?

Not trying to be thick or knock what you've done, just wondering as I want to fix the stock front limitations and ride comfort as well.

Thanks,

Shane

 

[72rockcruiser]

i still say the easiest way to do the 3 link is to cut the front endmost bushing retainer off the oe arms. discard these pieces completely. what you have left is a basic pair of lower links that clear the tierod.

now weld a basic tower on the pumpkin. because the lower arms are made from modified oe arms they are low enough that the tower doesn't need to be high-a 4" lift spring would be plenty to clear the tower in this case.

weld a link mount to pass side inner fender and make the pass side upper link the exact length of a rear lower arm which are plentiful. thus you dont even need to fab an arm for the upper link-just use an extra rear lower link. make sure to get the pinion angle right the first time.

this could be built easily with the axle still on the truck

there you have it. a $75 three link you can do in a saturday

Has this been done yet? It sure sounds good.

 

[Tools R Us]

Kevin, what exactly is the difference in this setup over simply doing the "trailer hitch mod" other than correcting the castor?

Not trying to be thick or knock what you've done, just wondering as I want to fix the stock front limitations and ride comfort as well.

Thanks,

Shane

The hitch pin works pretty well with aftermarket arms. Not having the second bushing on one arm further reduces flex bind. On lifted rigs, the stock arms don't have enough tie rod clearance, when the pin is removed and flexed, the arm hits the tie rod hard, often bending it.

 

[Tools R Us]

Has this been done yet? It sure sounds good.

The stock arms don't have enough tie rod clearance, read post #48.