665.0coupe
Red Skull Member
Exactly. And if he was going to order a run of 50, it was with the intent of selling them. He then has to mark up the $300/pr to make his money.
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Fabricated 9" / 10" housings
- Thread starter RustyC
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arse_sidewards
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Which is why in my initial comment I specifically mentioned low end high steer arms and wheel spacers and other "commodity" shit that doesn't involve middle men.
Throw strut spacer lift kits and link brackets/tabs into that category too.
Bebop
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I'm glad not everyone thinks like you.
We couldn't have amazing builders like Skipped_Link or Wisconsinite because, you know, fancy parts have zero or near zero bearing on fitness for purpose. A shitty part with the right holes hogged out of it will perform almost indistinguishably from the crap I'm trying to justify.
665.0coupe
Red Skull Member
I would say it's more supply and demand than middle man. Every overlander with a Tacoma has wheel spacers and a spacer lift. The market for 05+ SD UB cups is much smaller.
Also I bet there is more middle men involved in wheel spacers than UB cups. Larger orders with 3rd party shops make the per piece price lower. It's very common to farm out the high volume stuff and keep the one offs in house.
Satan's_Minion
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Correct which is why I knew that the only people that would make any $ selling them would have to make the machine shop portion of the markup also. If you think about how long it would take to sell 25 axles worth you would be sitting on 7k of inventory for awhile to make minimal $
5 pair was in the range of $200 each, which seems about like what S&S is doing, as he machines them himself. I have one of his first sets, but now everything going rear steer so they just sit on my shelf. I use it to drill out the bearings for 8x6.5
Tech Tim
Your AD Here....
Would they sell a ton?
That's the problem right there, this is not a high volume part.
So $150ea or $300/pair after normal machine shop margins.
Fucking nailed it.
^^^This right here.
And that mark-up has to cover a lot. Things like liability insurance, R&D time (no matter how little), time to answer stooopid questions about the product, shelf space taken up by a slower moving product that could be stocking a higher profit, faster moving product and more that I'm not thinking of.
Fixed it for you.....
arse_sidewards
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Supply and demand is why nobody has made a cheap one yet. That Weaver one is pretty damn close but IDK what their shop financial situation is, and how much lower they could push it.
There are a lot of one and two man CNC businesses out there that run three machines out of the owner's garage, have some business line that is their primary business and do consumer facing stuff as a secondary thing that keeps the machines from ever being idle. They list one of every size they have a cad file for on eBay or whatever and when they get an order they run it using drops from their normal work. In just my personal experience buying and selling machine tool stuff I've run across no less than three such shops in the Boston area, not all wheel spacers but still.
3 hours, on a manual mill, lol, you're funny! Those bearings are huge and there is a ton of metal to hog out. I even started the parts off in a plasma table to get the outside profile and 90% of the through bore. Used carbide end mills. Yes, an actual machinist could have done it much faster than me. But I probably had close to 3 hours just going back and forth from calipers, mics and telescoping gauges to the computer to model it up.
Of course, I did waste a lot of production efficiency by flipping the part and milling a taper on the back side in an effort to save weight. It was for a racecar, unsprung weight kills.
Ghetto Fab.
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Any thoughts on making something like that with a lathe? Obviously the bolt pattern has to be done with some kind of mill, but the rest is just concentric turning and lends itself well to a lathe. I dunno.
arse_sidewards
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Oh you totally could if that's what you were comfortable with. A big mill has faster material removal rate than a big lathe though.
I hogged out a ~3" center bore in 2" plate for trans output bearing to sit in just last week. Took about 3hr maybe 4 using the bridgeport and rotary table and I was an idiot and turned it all to chips. If I'd have gone at it with a hole saw I easily could have shaved an hour. If I didn't have the rotary table it would have taken 6hr.
Yeah you'd have benifitted a lot from improved workflow and skipping the computer step and just working off the bearing.
arse_sidewards the margin is irrelevant. if you think you can make the product cheaper then do it. if not shut your stinking pie hole about it.
I wish I had a lathe, could have done this way quicker myself.
The bearing pocket alone is around 6.5" diameter and 1.125" deep if memory serves, so more than twice the volume of metal removed.
Only reason I ended up modeling it was to make sure the backside taper left enough thickness in the cross section where it got close to the bearing pocket.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the original topic, so I will stop adding to the derailment, lol.
bjeep
Flunky
Please let us know how the quality of the housing is. I am interested to see anything from TG that is good quality.
Agreed.
I've been on the fence between ruffstuff and TG for a few months now. A $300-500 difference depending on where you order from/shipping. I'd like to go with TG and save the coin but I'm weary of quality (only reason I didn't pull the trigger, that and the parts counter went away so I figured I'd wait a bit to see if it comes back). I'm just curious to see how different they could be especially knowing that TG is assembled/welded here in the USA.
Wisconsinite
Red Skull Member
I have built a few trail gear housings when the price difference between them and spidertrax was more substantial. I thought there used to be a ~$600 dollar difference, now it is sub $400.
I was pretty surprised with the quality. They were pretty decent, but not a spidertrax housing. If I was doing a budget build (I wouldn't use a 9" for a start) but I wouldn't be afraid to use a TG housing.
I was pretty surprised with the quality. They were pretty decent, but not a spidertrax housing. If I was doing a budget build (I wouldn't use a 9" for a start) but I wouldn't be afraid to use a TG housing.
I thought it was the general consensus that the TG housings are good quality and better than what is currently coming out of ruff stuff. It also seems like everyone says the ruff stuff housings are big compared to TG or spidertrax.
the larger center section is done properly (i havent check how the ruffstuff are built) makes for stronger housing.
those housings and portals pair well cough * chinese knockoffs * cough
Wisconsinite
Red Skull Member
Chinese knockoffs?
Wisconsinite
Red Skull Member
for a pair?
94toytruck
Eastcoast crawler
IDK man, I have a few friends that have TG housings and say they're pretty good, I've had a bunch of not great stuff from them over the years though. Makes me think twice about using something of theirs as the foundation to a critical part of my rig.
Opiebennett
XJ_Ranger
I've had good luck on my TG 9 for the last 5 years. Running in the rear of my pro mod. Using their 99-04 cups and brakes as well. Branik shafts/unit bearing/drive flanges because I needed 5 on 5.5 to match the front. Ordered a roller kit, sold the 6 lug unit bearings.
Broke a r+p hopping on it hard at Sand Hollow, but otherwise been fantastic. No leaks from their seal housings / seals, regular service removal and reinstall of the full float double spline shafts has been just fine.
My ruffstuff front 9 is so bent, my drivers (short) side axle seal leaks forever. Never been able to prevent that from leaking.
And the ruffstuff center is much bigger than the TG - which might be a benefit for a 4400 or race car, but I see as a detractor in a rock crawler.
To be fair, my RS was a way early version that was like $400 total, before they were machining the face plate after welding.
Broke a r+p hopping on it hard at Sand Hollow, but otherwise been fantastic. No leaks from their seal housings / seals, regular service removal and reinstall of the full float double spline shafts has been just fine.
My ruffstuff front 9 is so bent, my drivers (short) side axle seal leaks forever. Never been able to prevent that from leaking.
And the ruffstuff center is much bigger than the TG - which might be a benefit for a 4400 or race car, but I see as a detractor in a rock crawler.
To be fair, my RS was a way early version that was like $400 total, before they were machining the face plate after welding.
Yes for 2 housings.
Sean
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Been looking at the same things.
These are the numbers I've gotten from 3 manufacturers for center line of housing to the bottom for the 9/10" fabricated housings:
Diamond: 5.25"
Trail Gear 5.5"
Ruff Stuff 6"
Spidertrax 6.1"
Still waiting on a reply from Spidertrax.
***EDIT Just got it today.....
Spidertrax 6.1" when measured from centerline to the bottom of the housing on the face plate. ***
I'm frankly surprised that there's that much difference when all of them are designed for both ring gears.
These are the numbers I've gotten from 3 manufacturers for center line of housing to the bottom for the 9/10" fabricated housings:
Diamond: 5.25"
Trail Gear 5.5"
Ruff Stuff 6"
Spidertrax 6.1"
Still waiting on a reply from Spidertrax.
***EDIT Just got it today.....
Spidertrax 6.1" when measured from centerline to the bottom of the housing on the face plate. ***
I'm frankly surprised that there's that much difference when all of them are designed for both ring gears.
Last edited:
In your opinion what happens to the HP gear market if no one buys them out and continues operations.
I feel Tubeworks is pricey for your average wheeler. But other businesses like Curry/ hi-9 revolve around the HP gear for their axles and that's pretty much their main business these days, no?
I wanted to go hp but budget set me to gear works LP housing with motive 10" gears. Figured I could upgrade way down the road if need be.
Bebop
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That's why I haven't bought a HP 10 yet. I don't want to be stuck in a platform with no support.
Agreed
Currie rarely pushes their HP 9, because they know the R&P is weak (it's a 8.8 gearset, not a real HP 9").
Hi-9 is like GW right now, they're SOL with no ETA in sight. They will sell you the R&P ratios they have in stock, but once they're gone, that's it.
I agree with the thought, but if you're building an axle from scratch, the pinion location will have an impact on housing angle. This is especially true for a front axle. I don't want to build a front axle that is meant for a LP setup, then drop a HP in later and have to change everything or live with the wrong caster/pinion axle.
Rear axle you can probably get away with adjusting the links to make up for the angle, but still not ideal.
I completely understand and thought about this as well but the budget only allowed so much wiggle room for this build. And this is also the point where I say I'm tail tucked and fingers crossed that there's no need for me to ever have to upgrade.
