French Tickler Buggy

[Ted]

Ya so yawl broked shit havin fun and shit eatn gran in the middel of yer fwkn noggn whilst throttel jockee'n like a fukn French injunear! Bout time!
Middel Fangers!

 

[Slander]

Love AOP!! Nice breakage!!

 

[Bebop]

Get rid of those socket head cap screws and get some 12 Points. They were not tight enough. It looks like the arms have been moving for awhile and the break on the non broken side is old and rusted unless that is just how corrosive the soil is from the time of break to time of picture.

I may try that.

Right now the company that made these arms doesn't exist anymore. So I'll have to get another set made from scratch.

Another option would be a set of Reid knuckles and keyed arms from BKOR :

Reid Super Duty Knuckle Package WITH high steer

This is the strongest 05+ super duty knuckle package on the market. REID 05+ super duty knuckles machined to accept BKOR keyed billet high steer arms!! This combo is the strongest option for guys running super duty Cs and knuckles. Our high steer arms key directly into the milled slot...

bustedknuckleoffroad.com

But the cost is high and I really don't like the very positive Akerman they have. I would like to keep it as close to Neutral as possible.
And I don't think Burkey will make me a custom set.

Ya so yawl broked shit havin fun and shit eatn gran in the middel of yer fwkn noggn whilst throttel jockee'n like a fukn French injunear! Bout time!
Middel Fangers!

Damn right !

Love AOP!! Nice breakage!!

AOP is fun. IMO nothing like Windrock or Harlan, but it's 30mn from me so I'm def. not complaining.

 

[ridered3]

I may try that.

Right now the company that made these arms doesn't exist anymore. So I'll have to get another set made from scratch.

Another option would be a set of Reid knuckles and keyed arms from BKOR :

Reid Super Duty Knuckle Package WITH high steer

This is the strongest 05+ super duty knuckle package on the market. REID 05+ super duty knuckles machined to accept BKOR keyed billet high steer arms!! This combo is the strongest option for guys running super duty Cs and knuckles. Our high steer arms key directly into the milled slot...

bustedknuckleoffroad.com

But the cost is high and I really don't like the very positive Akerman they have. I would like to keep it as close to Neutral as possible.
And I don't think Burkey will make me a custom set.



Damn right !



AOP is fun. IMO nothing like Windrock or Harlan, but it's 30mn from me so I'm def. not complaining.

Purely out of curiosity, who made the old arms?

 

[Bebop]

Purely out of curiosity, who made the old arms?

Four Wheel Supply.

Ryan doesn't make parts anymore but he was generous enough to provide his files to enable me to have another set of arms made somewhere. Definitely the cheapest option and it's been holding up fine for the past 3 years.

I may do that, but it's hard not to want to upgrade at the same time.

I wish someone was making something just like I want and cheap too

 

[ridered3]

Four Wheel Supply.

Ryan doesn't make parts anymore but he was generous enough to provide his files to enable me to have another set of arms made somewhere. Definitely the cheapest option and it's been holding up fine for the past 3 years.

I may do that, but it's hard not to want to upgrade at the same time.

I wish someone was making something just like I want and cheap too

Haha. Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.

 

[Slander]

AOP is fun. IMO nothing like Windrock or Harlan, but it's 30mn from me so I'm def. not complaining.

The trail system is nothing special, but I always have a blast there!

 

[Bebop]

Haha. Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.

Word !

 

[Bebop]

Area51

 

[YotaAtieToo]

Not surprised 4wheel supply is out of business. Their arms flat out wouldn't fit and he offered zero options to resolve it. Ended up sending back and getting artecs. Horrible customer service.

I guess yours held up for a while, but the design doesn't look great.

Have you looked at weaver fab? They were in norcal and moved out your way I believe? Did a very similar arm setup from what I remember.

 

[Bebop]

Weaver is 2h from me now, which is cool.

They have the same downfall as the BKOR stuff which is a very positive Akerman ratio. People are hung up on lining the TRE hole on the arm with the factory one on the knuckle and I'd rather not do that.

The Four Wheel Supply was the only one offering a more inboard solution.

On a side note, I've always had multiple great dealings with Ryan from 4wheel supply, he retubed an axle for me and did a great job, then I had a few sets of knuckles machined for high steer without issues. The design wasn't the best but he was the cheapest by far and at the time I was broke.

 

[ridered3]

The trail system is nothing special, but I always have a blast there!

We enjoy AOP for what it is. Nice park, awesome park managers, close to town, conveniently located to us at a little over an hour away, and good trails. Hard to cover much ground there but still fun and know our way around it pretty well.

That said, if I want to cover some ground, Hawk Pride or Harlan would be my go-tos with Hawk Pride winning out since it’s 1/3 of the distance away for us.

 

[Slander]

Never been to hawk pride, I need to hit that place up. Any fun stuff for a full bodied Toyota?

Harlan's great, probably my favorite place to ride overall.

 

[Weasel]

Get rid of those socket head cap screws and get some 12 Points. They were not tight enough. It looks like the arms have been moving for awhile and the break on the non broken side is old and rusted unless that is just how corrosive the soil is from the time of break to time of picture.

Guess I'm not seeing anything that indicates the arms were moving. Nothing wrong with the socket heads provided they are quality bolts.

Paste my post from the other thread as seems more correct to post here.

whoa gnarly breakage
couple of thoughts:

• don't think the center bolts are worthless, they are very thin material wise but the front 4 took the load. The rear one's only look to hold the end tails in place.
• the pocket idea is a good one to tie those tails together.
• increasing the material around the bolt holes would help. There is a recommended amount of material to avoid tear out, I doubt you can get to that but this is pretty thin it seems. Thickness would help but more on the sides would help more, imo. It doesn't have to the entire arm length but certainly along the bolt holes
• The one front hole is not used? There should be a bolt there.
• It looks like the holes in the knuckle are counter bored some, I'd find some bolts with the correct grip length and machine the threads down to the correct length.
• ugadugs are not proper torque spec, should use a torque wrench to set and then mark with paint
• I like CAT bolts for quality, could look at swapping to studs.

 

[ridered3]

Never been to hawk pride, I need to hit that place up. Any fun stuff for a full bodied Toyota?

Harlan's great, probably my favorite place to ride overall.

So far we only go for RBD but it seems to have something for everyone. Big bouncer hill climbs, lots of places to watch others be foolish, cool elevation changes and scenery, normal folk trails, lots of up/downs, etc. Their camping area and bath houses are top notch too. It’s no Harlan in terms of scenery but pretty awesome too.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

Weaver is 2h from me now, which is cool.

They have the same downfall as the BKOR stuff which is a very positive Akerman ratio. People are hung up on lining the TRE hole on the arm with the factory one on the knuckle and I'd rather not do that.

Are you opposed to adding the knuckle tie in tube and welding tabs off of it and the arm to put your hiem where you want it?

The Four Wheel Supply was the only one offering a more inboard solution.

On a side note, I've always had multiple great dealings with Ryan from 4wheel supply, he retubed an axle for me and did a great job, then I had a few sets of knuckles machined for high steer without issues. The design wasn't the best but he was the cheapest by far and at the time I was broke.

Maybe I caught him on an off day. It was pretty obvious the keyway was done with a chipped end mill, so they wouldn't seat correctly. He asked if I hit the corner with a file, gave them light taps, ect. I was waiting for him to just say "let me send you a new set and send me those back" but he didn't. I said if he didn't want to make it right, send me my money and a shipping label. So he did

I liked what he was doing, but looking at the arms, it was clear he didn't know a whole lot about machine work.

 

[HYDRODYNAMIC]

After looking at all the garbage weld on / bolt on / machined high steer geometry for off-road use. I would pick whatever flavor you want, cut the end of the arm off as soon as it clears the knuckle and weld on tabs top and bottom to create a dual shear setup. I used safety washer on top and bottom of the rod end and ended up with 1.5" between upper and lower tabs. If most arms are .75" to 1" thick add .75" or .5" block to the top or bottom of the arms to make it thick enough and sandwich it all together with some tabs.
Whatever geometry you want no compromise. You can even do all the work with a grinder, drill, and welder.

 

[Bebop]

All good info.

Thanks HYDRODYNAMIC, YotaAtieToo, Weasel and the others for the input.

I think both HYDRODYNAMIC and YotaAtieToo are on the right path. Making my own arms is the only way to get them the way I want and I like y'alls ideas.

Kinda reminds me of Randy / Bomber Fab fabricated HSA.

 

[Bebop]

Because I hate money and I didn’t want to wait forever on a shop that could cut me some arms.

Also, I found 1 stripped hole in the factory knuckle that hit the tree so that helped make the decision easier.

I had to get new ball joint eliminators too. Yeayyy...

Those are Reid 05+ knuckles that have been machined by BKOR for the RCV Big Bells. They also add a custom keyway and their arms key into the knuckle.

 

[ridered3]

Because I hate money and I didn’t want to wait forever on a shop that could cut me some arms.

Also, I found 1 stripped hole in the factory knuckle that hit the tree so that helped make the decision easier.

I had to get new ball joint eliminators too. Yeayyy...

Those are Reid 05+ knuckles that have been machined by BKOR for the RCV Big Bells. They also add a custom keyway and their arms key into the knuckle.

Truer words have never been typed regarding the “I hate money” comment

 

[94toytruck]

Damn, those are pimp!

 

[Ted]

Because I hate

YOU! Ya fawkn fukr!
Hate the fukn bonr I gots in mmah drawers now cuzza yer gawd damn knuckle porn
Fah-Q !
Way to bite the bullet
Fangers!

 

[Bebop]

I'm glad I can provide some entertainment, brotha

 

[mobil1syn]

less thinking more doing, i like it

 

[HYDRODYNAMIC]

Busted Knucklehead still has the issue of too much Ackermann. It looks like it has enough that you could weld tabs onto the arm and end up around zero Ackermann. Tabs would create dual shear even though you proved it is not needed.

 

[Bebop]

Busted Knucklehead still has the issue of too much Ackermann. It looks like it has enough that you could weld tabs onto the arm and end up around zero Ackermann. Tabs would create dual shear even though you proved it is not needed.

Yes Sir, that's the plan.

I played with some tabs in order to see how much Ackerman I can get away with. My limit is the links on the inside, but I have nothing interfering on the outside.





I may just slap it together, as is, in order to make it to a ride I have going on soon (gonna make mobil1syn happy haha), but I'm working on a better solution for sure.

 

[Bebop]

I ended up spending waaaaaay too long to put this POS back together. Everything that could have made my life harder did.

For some reason, one of the knuckles turned out to be a huge PITA to weld to. Cast is always harder to weld than regular steel, and I've done my fair share of successful welding in it, but this one threw me for a loop.

One of the knuckles welded perfect and after a cool down in a blanket was ready to be installed. The other one had cracks all around the toe of the weld. Took me 4 full re-grind, clean, prep etc to get the weld to fully penetrate and be up to my liking. I ended up using some NI55 rod which made a significant difference in way the puddle behaved and edge control. I even tried to MIG it (which I've done sucessfully in the past) and this was the worst result of all my tries.

I cannot understand the drastic behavior difference between these 2 knuckles. The only 2 reasons I can come up with is that one of the castings wasn't as good as the other, or the welder (not the machine...) really sucks ass at this TIG welding thing.
In all honesty, it's probably the later.

But the one that welded fine was looking kinda decent.

Then, when I thought I was clear to install, the ball joints bit me in the ass. I had a spare set I bought when I installed the knuckles during the original build. Driveworks brand. They worked nice on my OEM 2005-07 knuckles, but for some reason were too big to be pressed on the Reid ones. Because I wanted to move along quickly, I went to the local parts store and got their house brand. They pressed in good but when I went to put the knuckles together, the taper of the stem was wrong and was letting them free-float in the female tapper. So I had to get a third set and this time I got Moog (like I should have gotten in the first place) and everything went together was supposed to. Of course this was a significant time waster.

When I had it all done good, I fogged the knuckles and arms black in order to hide the bright orange powder coat of the Reid knuckles. I made sure to finish whatever was left in 3 random spray cans of black paint (different shades of course) I had laying around. I'm saving money and making sure the result doesn't look too good. Don't want new shinny parts looking too good on my garbage.

Because I had time between my welding attempts and BJ issues, I ended up spending a few minutes putting lipstick on this pig. Properly shanked all braking hardware, painted the outers, cleaned up and repacked the big bells (they don't have an ounce of play after 3 years of riding) and changed the outer shaft seals.

The new arms have a terrible Ackerman IMO (lines up with the OEM holes) and will need to be redone for optimal performance, but I was trying to put it back together to go ride. I'll spend some time on that later.

But finally, after much cussing and sweating my ass off in my non-AC shop, she back !

 

[ridered3]

I ended up spending waaaaaay too long to put this POS back together. Everything that could have made my life harder did.

For some reason, one of the knuckles turned out to be a huge PITA to weld to. Cast is always harder to weld than regular steel, and I've done my fair share of successful welding in it, but this one threw me for a loop.

One of the knuckles welded perfect and after a cool down in a blanket was ready to be installed. The other one had cracks all around the toe of the weld. Took me 4 full re-grind, clean, prep etc to get the weld to fully penetrate and be up to my liking. I ended up using some NI55 rod which made a significant difference in way the puddle behaved and edge control. I even tried to MIG it (which I've done sucessfully in the past) and this was the worst result of all my tries.

I cannot understand the drastic behavior difference between these 2 knuckles. The only 2 reasons I can come up with is that one of the castings wasn't as good as the other, or the welder (not the machine...) really sucks ass at this TIG welding thing.
In all honesty, it's probably the later.

But the one that welded fine was looking pretty decent.



Then, when I thought I was clear to install, the ball joints bit me in the ass. I had a spare set I bought when I installed the knuckles during the original build. Driveworks brand. They worked nice on my OEM 2005-07 knuckles, but for some reason were too big to be pressed on the Reid ones. Because I wanted to move along quickly, I went to the local parts store and got their house brand. They pressed in good but when I went to put the knuckles together, the taper of the stem was wrong and was letting them free-float in the female tapper. So I had to get a third set and this time I got Moog (like I should have gotten in the first place) and everything went together was supposed to. Of course this was a significant time waster.

When I had it all done good, I fogged the knuckles and arms black in order to hide the bright orange powder coat of the Reid knuckles. I made sure to finish whatever was left in 3 random spray cans of black paint (different shades of course) I had laying around. I'm saving money and making sure the result doesn't look too good. Don't want new shinny parts looking too good on my garbage.

Because I had time between my welding attempts and BJ issues, I ended up spending a few minutes putting lipstick on this pig. Properly shanked all braking hardware, painted the outers, cleaned up and repacked the big bells (they don't have an ounce of play after 3 years of riding) and changed the outer shaft seals.



But finally, after much cussing and sweating my ass off in my non-AC shop, she back !

Insert Beavis and Butthead noises at “BJ Issues”

 

[Dan]

Did your brake kit come without properly shanked bolts or are the Reid knuckles a little different?

 

[Bebop]

Did your brake kit come without properly shanked bolts or are the Reid knuckles a little different?

First option.
I don't know of any manufacturer who offers a race brake kit for 05+ with properly shanked bolts.
Not that you're gonna be shearing 5/8 gr8 hardware, if it's propely torqued, shanked or not.