Torque Rod Lengthening

Hi guys, I need some info. I need to lengthen a torque rod about 5" to use on a bobbed deuce for axle wrap prevention. Any ideas? I can gas weld and braze. I also have a mig welder set up for mild steel. would a sleeve be advised? Or should I scrap the idea and build something like the top half of a 4 link with rod ends and tubing? I like the idea of using the torque rods tho....

Thanks
Dirt

Probably a pipe sleeve would be just fine. You will be dealing with tension and compression. Do you know the dimension of the rod itself? Then you can check the nominal size of pipe, schedual 40 & 80, to see if you can get a reasonable fit. Another trick is to use a fair bit of overlap, and put in some plug welds. Drill some 1/2" holes in the pipe sleeve and fill it in with weld, being sure to start the weld in the bottom of the hole, filling it in. Practice with your MIG on similiar materials of equal thickness, to get it adjusted.

Lee in Alaska

Those links ARE forged, right? Personally, I'd use tubing (instead of pipe) and I'd want to knock the corners off the links so I could get a tighter fit. I'd do like rosco suggested, and plug-weld them in a few places. I'd also cut the tube that will slide over the links on an angle, or a fishmouthed shape.

Have you measured a 5ton rod arm? Might not need to mod anything and worry about liability.

I had thought about plug welding and had planned on doing that, but I hadn't considered fishmouthing to weld to the rod ends. That's a good idea! I wonder how the rubber bushing will like being welded so close? I was thinking of using rectangular tubing as it would conform more to the shape of the rod.
I'm not using lift blocks (running 105 springs) so I didn't think I was gonna have to worry about axle wrap, boy was I wrong. I don't have the bed on it yet and I can see what the axle is doing, and it ain't nothin nice. I pulled into my neighbor's drive which is just a little bit downhill, when I went to back out I experienced wheelhop so bad that I had to put in 4wd.
I was gonna try just one torque rod mounted off the top of the axle to the left of the differential parallel to the frame to a cross member toward the front that I built. Do you guys think that only using one will cause any skewing of the axle under acceleration or braking? In theory it should work, but I ain't tried it yet

Thanks
Dirt

If you're only planning on using one link, the geometry is very important. If it's not spot-on, it will bind. It's probably not going to be as much of a problem as it can be on rock crawlers and desert race trucks, but that's just because of the limited wheel-travel you're dealing with. There are many-many-many different ways to skin this cat. If it were me, I'd probably build some type of simple ladder-bar with a shackle-pivot up front (where it's attached to the chassis). Design the ladder-bar so that it keeps the differential pointed in the direction you want it, and the shackle lets the axle move forward/back with the leafsprings as the suspension cycles.

This is kinda what I had in mind.

Yeah, I understand. With the limited amount of suspension travel that you're likely to have with that springpack, you might be OK. Only way to know is to try it. Mock it up, cycle the suspension. Make adjustments. Repeat as necessary.

jesusgatos said:

Design the ladder-bar so that it keeps the differential pointed in the direction you want it, and the shackle lets the axle move forward/back with the leafsprings as the suspension cycles.

Click to expand...

Now that is a he[[ of a good idea.. I really like the shackle, it would eliminate the binding of the fore and aft movement of the rear end while still controlling the wrap. You is a purdy sharp cookie.

Dirt

April 27th, 2010.

RANDYDIRT:

Did you get the G177's mounted yet? I can see you are wrestling with some geometry and traction issues in the bobbed duece.... Any chance of coming up with a radius rod unit rear end like a Unimog uses (EG all tractive forces are transmitted to either the frame or transmission by radius bars or rods... like traction bars)??

No Kyle, I still don't have them mounted yet, I want to do some work to the wheels first. I may flip the center like Jesse (Jesus Gatos) did or widen them about three inches to have them sit more outboard for a tougher stance. I still don't have the bed mounted nor is anything ready for paint. But I'm getting there.
Dirt

Use a 5 ton torque rod and move the mount if necessary. Just my 1 cent worth.
CT

the rods are not forged, im prety shure they are cast steel, i dont belive you will be able to get a good enough weld quality to be safe. im pretty decent at welding and did this same thing with the tubing and did not have satisfactory results.

The stuff will weld just fine, with proper technique. If your using a MIG, your probably not hot enough!

However the reason that I comment again is that in your brief drawing of the spring dog-bone, you need another joint, to allow flexing. On semi-elliptical springs. both ends/sides from the center/axle, change lengths, when the spring flattens. That includes the end that is flxed to the frame. You can go from the axle out horrzontal, but then you need two more flexible joints, to get back to the frame. Then things won't bind. Things have to be so there is no spring wrap-up for that to work.

RANDYDIRT said:

Now that is a he[[ of a good idea.. I really like the shackle, it would eliminate the binding of the fore and aft movement of the rear end while still controlling the wrap. You is a purdy sharp cookie.

Dirt

Click to expand...

Thanks, but that's a pretty common technique for controlling axle-wrap on rock crawlers and desert trucks. If you didn't want to use a shackle, you could use a telescoping ladder-bar instead. Seen that done too. If you search pirate4x4, you'll find more info on this topic than you'll want to sort through.

ODdave said:

the rods are not forged, im prety shure they are cast steel, i dont belive you will be able to get a good enough weld quality to be safe. im pretty decent at welding and did this same thing with the tubing and did not have satisfactory results.

Click to expand...

Whoa. Deal-breaker if that's true. Of course, it wouldn't be the end of the world if that thing broke, but still...

rosco said:

The stuff will weld just fine, with proper technique. If your using a MIG, your probably not hot enough!

However the reason that I comment again is that in your brief drawing of the spring dog-bone, you need another joint, to allow flexing. On semi-elliptical springs. both ends/sides from the center/axle, change lengths, when the spring flattens. That includes the end that is flxed to the frame. You can go from the axle out horrzontal, but then you need two more flexible joints, to get back to the frame. Then things won't bind. Things have to be so there is no spring wrap-up for that to work.

Click to expand...

Are you saying it's OK to weld on them even if they're cast? Can't say I'd agree with you about that. At least, not in any application where a welded link was actually being used to locate an axle. The additional flexible joints you just described sound a lot like the shackle mounting method that I was talking about. No?

Steel is steel. Its weldable with proper technique! Cast iron is different, but there are techniques for that too.

Yeah... probably the same kinds of basic joints. Spring wrap - axle hop, what ever... When I was a kid we called the remedy Traction Masters that somebody commercially made - we didn't have money to spend on stuff like that, so we made our own. But on the 1950 Mercury flat head, we could get away making them out of a piece of tie rod and a couple of tie rod ends. The names have changed and things have gotten much more sophisticated.

Lee in Alaska

How's this for a design? The top bars will be the top links off a three point hitch and the bottom will most likely be dom or pipe.

dirt

Yeah, that's the right idea. But if you want to make the ladder-bar adjustable (pinion angle), you'll need to add another pivot where the lower link attaches to the upper link. I probably wouldn't bother with that if it was my truck. Just get all your mounting point set up right the first time and weld it all together. Remember, the location of that pivot point at the chassis is still critical. That's what your axle is going to pivot around.