Thread: My From-Scratch project

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This is gonna sound harsh, but I think it is the truth....

Tractor links have no business on a car. They will get sloppy really quick. 4x4 guys have tried them and wasted them on the first use.

As far as all of the mounting brackets go. You should have researched other people's work. It would have saved you some re-work.

your lower shock mounts are pretty much guarrantied to fail....and will damage the link mounts when they do twist off.

The top links should angle out and mount on the frame rails for simplicity and structural integrity. the stepped crossmember you drew would need to be braced pretty well with diagonals (front to back) to handle braking and acceleration loads.

Copy somebody elses proven designs.

Originally Posted by Flipper_1938

This is gonna sound harsh, but I think it is the truth....

Tractor links have no business on a car. They will get sloppy really quick. 4x4 guys have tried them and wasted them on the first use.

As far as all of the mounting brackets go. You should have researched other people's work. It would have saved you some re-work.

your lower shock mounts are pretty much guarrantied to fail....and will damage the link mounts when they do twist off.

The top links should angle out and mount on the frame rails for simplicity and structural integrity. the stepped crossmember you drew would need to be braced pretty well with diagonals (front to back) to handle braking and acceleration loads.

Copy somebody elses proven designs.

Sure it sounds harsh, but it's very helpful, and it's exactly the kind of things I want people to let me know if they have an opinion about it. So thankyou .
as for the shock mounts, I had doubts about them, but another guy that lives by me that builds cars looked at them and insists they should be okay. (I still had doubts though). I think that I'll be putting a second piece of angle on the backside. I may redo the front lower bar mounts on the side of the frame too. I don't think I like them, and I need to move them back about 1 1/2 inches anyways. I already did the cross member, and have re-enforced it alot. I have a picture of what I did here in this post. I may put a couple bars at an angle from the top, back to the rear bar of the frame. I may be changing the top rear bar mounts too, so there is more travel available....maybe use 2x4 instead of 2x3 and raise the ends of the bars about an inch.
I wont be off-roadiing with this, and I wont be drag racing, so I'm not sure the links will be a problem. I know a couple guys that have 4x4s and they beat the crap out of them. I'm not an engineer, and you may be right though. It's something that I can change if I have too. Most of this stuff, I have copied from other people though, like the spring mounts, 2x3 mounts for the 4 bars, upper shock mounts, and some other things
I ran out of welding wire , so I can't do any more until next friday when I get another check. Thanks again for your looking at this and your comments.

looking at it again, I may put a couple 8"x8" triangles for gussets at the front of the lower crossmember bars, horizontally, to the bottom rail of the frame.

Sam