bent rear upper arm mount

[BlackDiamondBound]

hard to tell from the pic, but those two tabs are no longer at a 90 degree so I have 6" of my tire sticking out on one side and about 5" from the exhaust pipe rubbing the tire on the other. Thinking about grinding them off and then welding some new tabs on there. thoughts? or should I just get the whole bracket?

Only one tab was bent at first, which I was able to hammer straight without heat but as expected, the next time out it didnt hold.

[IndyZJ]

Looks like an old Clayton's kit. What's the rest of your setup look like?

There have been other threads before with a similar problem - Clayton's ZJ kits (and those who copied it) don't really have enough triangulation to effectively locate the rear end without putting a huge stress on parts. Smaller/ lighter-wheeled rigs can get away with it, but if you have a heavy rig/ big tires/ wheel hard/ etc., components will be over-stressed.

The real fix would be triangulating the lowers. Or you can bandaid it by replacing the bracket and carrying on, but I would plate the rails and try to box that upper mount in as the area will be weaker after the bracket is cut out and re-welded back in the same spot.

[BlackDiamondBound]

its an old claytons wj kit, that has seen its day im afraid. (i posted last summer about how the rear truss broke off on both sides) all the other brackets are straight but they have put enough stress to put cracks in the unibody. both the upper mounts have gussets behind them. this one cracked the welds on the gusset.



now you have me thinking about triangulating the lowers. any kits out there, or am i better off having plates cut and welding them myself? plating the rails does need to happen too

[IndyZJ]

There aren't going to be any real kits to correct all the issues going on at this point.

After you fix the cracks and do some plating, all you really need is a 2x4 crossmember and some simple tabs/ brackets. You may have to get creative with the crossmember if the driveshaft is in the way. Keep the same vertical separation you have now if you like the way it climbs, use the same angles for the uppers, and triangulate the lowers at least 30 degrees. That will mean new axle-side brackets - I'd mount them as far out on the axle as you can. When you're done you could tie the crossmembers together and make an easy flat skid plate.

[BlackDiamondBound]

thanks for the ideas indy, very helpful.

[BlackDiamondBound]

I decided I'm going to do a tempary fix to get me threw the winter. playing in the snow wont have me flexing too much, and then hopefully when summer rolls around i'll have enough $$ to gut the whole rear plate the rails and get a new truss to do it right so this crap stops breaking.

here are my temporary ideas, what do you guys think?

option 1: simply box the back of the two mounts together




option 2: place a piece that goes from the outside control arm bracket and run it back to the frame rail. this is what i currently have and it is cracked where the plate meets the bracket.




or I could combine both the options together, and fully box the bracket? I dont whats the strongest stetup

[K2]

Have you tried a sheet metal screw?

[Stephenie46]

Thanks for sharing own experience.