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Knuckle thread #2

J

Juan_Hong_Loe

That's dumb
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Not sure if I should have posted this in the other thead or not but oh well. dunno 3 tons o fun and me keyed my knuckles today. Thought I would post up some pics of how we did it. Please give feedback and ask any questions. I do have some questions for you guys as well but I will get to them later.

Okay I have a Dana 60 out of a chev. Stock knuckles and some steering arms that I had made about 5-6 years ago. We have been wanting to do this for quite some time a since we had some down time during the holidays we figured we would do it now. First we machined som keys from some 1"x1" cold rolled to 1"x9/16"+/-. We then drilled a hole in them for them to be plug welded to the steering arm. See pics below.







After we did this we then cut a 1"x1/4" slot in each arm.





Here is a pic of the arms after the keys have been welded into them.



Then Neal cleaned up the arms.







Arms are done!
 
On to the knuckles! We then milled a slot into the knuckles just as we did the arms.









And here is the finished product!





Both the Arms and that Knuckles have a .002"-.003" interference fit. So no slack between the two.

Daniel
 
That is just plain good tech. Glad to see ya out there doing it with what ya got!
 
blacksheep10 said:
I wish I had a friend with a mill worse than you know. worse than that I wish I had a mill :flipoff1: good ****
Click to expand...

Too bad we don't live closer, I have one and don't know how to use it!
 
I just wish we had access to all the goodies in that shop! Not sure how many but around 8-10 CNC Mills, 2-4 CNC Lathes, Manual mills and lathes, Burn table, Laser, dirt bike shop. Awesome equipment in there! if it had a lift and a bender. We'd be golden!

On to my question I have fo everyone. Should I plate the front side of the knuckle by welding a piece to the steering arm (like Bryan Coles rig) or should I just weld it to the knuckle itself? I don't like taking away material from what is already there but in the case of keying the knuckle we have enough material going back where we took it from with a good fit. Drilling and tapping the knuckle like Cole Worx does seems to me that it creates a stress line right down the middle where the original tie rod bolts up. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. I just dont think that putting a bolt back into knuckle where material is removed is quite like what I did above. Again correct me if wrong on that as well. What do you guys think?

Daniel
 
Yeah im kinda wondering that too. If its really going to add that much more strength versus the time its going to take to build the braces. Im not trying to sound lazy about it . Ive actually seen pics of the kingpin bolts/studs sheered off and never actually seen any were the top of the knuckle broke off. Of course Ive heard the horror stories about it. If anyone has a pic of a broken knuckle Id be more than glad to see it.
 
I have seen one and have 2 cracked ones in my shop right now. the top thick section that you keyed tears away just below where it turns to a thin vertical section. right where the 2 meet it tears. that is why you need to weld a peice of strap parallel to the top block as wide as the block (part you keyed) and then down to the bottom KP block. this creates a girdle that holds the top and bottom together. you weld it to the vertical edge the whole way down to add strength as well. in the front there are many choices, but anything that holds that inner corner of the top block that is hanging out there in mid air to the webbing that goes to the factory steering arm works.

John, you wanna sell it?
 
Here are some pics of the plating that we did today. I'm going to add some on the back side just don't know how much I can add until I get the Brembo 4 piston brake calipers mounted! pepper.gif ;D











Daniel
 
Looks good, but all this is pointless if you don't get those front coilovers mounted so you can roll that bitch around.
Did you let Neal weld that **** on there. :flipoff1:
 
Neal did not weld them. I did. The reason they look somewhat ugly now is because we ground them down just a little. So it looks like it's not welded good, but rest assured they are no going anywhere! :flipgotcha:
 
No I only get to weld on orange jeeps where it doesnt matter :flipper: :flipper: :flipper: :flipper:
 
too bad a hundo isn't enough. maybe if we get a group of 10 so that he tools up once for 10 = 500 in an afternoon :flipoff1: machinework costs too much, why I want a mill of my own.
I still like doing it the way you did, afternoon, some beer, some time, have fun adn get it done.
I am guessing that you might have to put a dip in your rear plate but you will most def want to put it in there. thumb.gif
 
Doing the machining and welding and then the machining again took from 9:45am to around 2:30pm. So lets say it took 2 hours to do just one. Not too bad. Heres the thing we only get to use the shop on some weekends and holidays, when hardly no one else is there.

Daniel
 
Juan_Hong_Loe said:
Doing the machining and welding and then the machining again took from 9:45am to around 2:30pm. So lets say it took 2 hours to do just one. Not too bad. Heres the thing we only get to use the shop on some weekends and holidays, when hardly no one else is there.

Daniel
Click to expand...
you have to remember that you were doing the prototype set. if you were slinging repeat parts in it gets much much quicker per part. the killer is in the setup.
 

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