Traction Bar

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Jetboy said:
This is what I did, you'd still need a cross member but just an idea. It's a top lind for a 3pt hitch. It works great imo. Allows almost unihibited flex yet keeps the pinion in place. I have yet to break a pinion in 2 years. It also helps that I have a double cardain on both shafts and the pinion starts 2* below directly pointed @ the second ujoint in the cardain. FYI This vehicle is SOA on 2.5" OME springs with stock engine tranny tcase, and 5.29 gears. It's on 38.5/16/15 tsls.
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If you were to go to a V8 you'd need to locate your trac bars below the centerline of the axle. If not your pinion will rotate UP-wards (bottom of axle pulls forward causing spring wrap) and snap it. Keep that in mind.
 
projektdotnet said:
If you were to go to a V8 you'd need to locate your trac bars below the centerline of the axle. If not your pinion will rotate UP-wards (bottom of axle pulls forward causing spring wrap) and snap it. Keep that in mind.
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It would have to cause massive deformation of the springs for that to happen. I'm fairly certain that they would break prior to the pinon reaching that angle. I don't think a mild v8 would come close. The real purpose of the trac bar for my situation was to eliminate cyclical motion when spinning on dirt or snow where hopping begins as this is where pinoin breakage is most likely.

Below the centerline would require the springs to stretch in order to force the pinion up, but on hard breaking or reverse act exacly the same as what I have. I don't see where above or below centerline makes a bit of difference, with the exception that below would seperate the link from the springs (assuming SOA) a little more giving more leverege, but in order to do that it would have to be as low as the lowest point on the diff or lower which would be stupid. The more stabiling force needed can be createdin a set up like mine, which keep in mind is nearly identicle to Toyota's design on mini trucks, by seperating the axle side of the link from the spring perches by a greater distance. The mini's do this with a small tower or bracket welded to the top of the axle tube to create separation.
 
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Trollhole said:
you also running lifted springs which are stiffer than stock.. You run that setup with stock springs and you will have failure.
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I don't think you can say that. Have you ever seen one set up like this fail? People bash it, but show me one picture anywhere of a similar set up failing. Convince me with a pic of a mini front end which retains the trac bar with a broken pinion due axle wrap. The springs are stiffer, but its only a 2.5" lift and they are OME which are not all that stiff.
 
how about the 2 people I know that used a stock spring SOA and had their trac bars above centerline and had spring wrap so bad that it snapped pinions?
What they found is that the bottom of the axle was pulling forward instead of the top. When the moved their trac bars below the axle they stopped having pinon issues
 
Jetboy said:
I don't think you can say that. Have you ever seen one set up like this fail? People bash it, but show me one picture anywhere of a similar set up failing. Convince me with a pic of a mini front end which retains the trac bar with a broken pinion due axle wrap. The springs are stiffer, but its only a 2.5" lift and they are OME which are not all that stiff.
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Feel better?

GSMTR this year. He broke 2 pinions on the trail.

2006-05_GSMTR-Mon-037.jpg








IMG_2605.JPG


notice the two holes in the crossmember? You know what caused them. A single point wrap bar just like yours. How do I know the design in the pick above doesn't work. Because my vehicle had that design. Ended up breaking off the crossmember, breaking the pinoin off busting the shock off, ripping the brakeline out destroying a DS, and wraping the wrap bar around the housing. Yep it was a great design.
 
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Very interesting.

mounting the front bracket to the bottom of the crossmember was was not the greatest design, the only forces are tension and compression thus it should be mounted directly in line with the center of the crossmember. Mounting like it appears in the pic just makes a lever with which to rip the mount free. The crossmember is thinner than I expected though.

Did the top picture also fail due to mechanical failure of the link system or was it able to break a pinion while still intact? I'd really like to see pics of the pinion failure, where and how it failed if you have any.
 
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Here is my old design. Massive wrap on a steep climb (Guardrail @ Tellico). Engine is 2F, H41 trans, and Orion. I was in 2nd gear when it happened, so hte gearing wasn't as deep as it could have been.
DSC00369.webp
 
Like i said the anti-wrap can be placed with one mount at the frame and the other at the bottom (below center) of the axle to keep the spring wrap down. Also we dont have any problems with not running a shackle at the other end of the tracbar. the following pic is nowhere near full flex (sorry i dont have any good shots of the bar itself but that is proof that they flex without the extra shackle on them)
dscf4393.jpg
 
John Smith said:
The axle mount on those shocks should mount with the stud pointed toward the rear to avoid bind. But they probably punch through the rear of the bed to make up for the lower mount?
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IIRC they USED to but dont...he's working on a redesign in the future IIRC but he has enough flex that it doesn't seem to matter to him. A badly positioned trac bar actually caused that to roll before (climbing slowly up a steep hill, springs wrapped and pinoin gave way...engine dies and he goes sliding backwards then onto a different directional face and flips 4X ) He had 3ft shocks on the rear before that.
 
Jetboy said:
Very interesting.

mounting the front bracket to the bottom of the crossmember was was not the greatest design, the only forces are tension and compression thus it should be mounted directly in line with the center of the crossmember. Mounting like it appears in the pic just makes a lever with which to rip the mount free. The crossmember is thinner than I expected though.

Did the top picture also fail due to mechanical failure of the link system or was it able to break a pinion while still intact? I'd really like to see pics of the pinion failure, where and how it failed if you have any.
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I was there when It failed. It was on a small ledge, Could prob do it "open"open"
He bounced once a litte bit and the pinion broke. The track bar was fine the first time. The pinion how ever was not. ITS A BAD DESIGN. I even had to go back to camp for the spare 3rd.
 
:flipoff2: I hope you realize what you've done... Now I'm going to redo my setup.
It's good to see those pics though, I had not seen actual proof of a failure like that before.
 
If it makes you feel better I broke my wrap bar too. Although I had the correct design I had weak steel 3/16 is not enough in my case. the mighty 2f ripped the mount on my track bar in half that was welded to the axle. I mean the weld dint break the metal sheared. This wrap bar survived 3 wheeling seasons...and finally let loose on Upper 2.

I have since picked up some 1/2 steel plate to re-make my mount on my rear axle.
 
here is a good test to see if you have axle wrap... drive rather quicky in reverse and mash on the brakes...Look for your rear springs to turn into 'S' shapes....
 
bandy rooster said:
are you sure its the drive shaft I always thought the one bar designs relied on the leaf spring as that link....i can't imagine that design works at all... better then nothing but not better then a two bar design... you need to solid mounting points on the axle to stop axle wrap
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The DS cannot be a link, it has a slip joint and U joints.
Picture using a wet spaghetti noodle as a link.


Couple of things,
The single bar above the axle centerline (no shackle) requires the springs as the other link. the springs DO wrap pretty good (depending on who makes them it varied how bad) and it also depends on what your spring pads are like (longer spring pads = harder to wrap the spring)

The single bar below the axle centerline is a slightly better design because you are distributing the load over the axle. So you have support above and below the axle housing. Better, but still not sufficient if you really get on it and have HP..

The ladder style (with a shackle) is truly the strongest and most suitable for keeping axle wrap in check. It does not require the leaf springs for anything but axle location and flex.
 
projektdotnet said:
could use a 3 link style for the rear to keep wrap down (one on each side from axle to frame and one in the center to a beefed up xmember) that seems to work well for another friend of mine
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He is running three links in the rear of a truck that is using leaf springs??
 
Poser said:
He is running three links in the rear of a truck that is using leaf springs??
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the orange one pictured above isn't but our friend who has what we call the short bus (bright yellow) cruiser has leafs in the rear and origionally had the one above the axle design. When we figured out that design doesnt work he added two more below the centerline of the axle. (in addition to the leafs and one above the axle) and it works great :cheers:
 
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