F... Leaf Springs !!!!!!! uuurrrrgggg

[Drivermod]

Isn't that the purpose of the frame side heim joint? I'm not sure about a 3 link making 1 arm do the job of 2.(Upper 3rd link)

My brother built his own radius arm setup on his Cherokee and it did not work well. He ended up removing one of the upper arms to get it to articulate better. It's awesome in the Dunes up in Michigan where he lives but doesn't work so well on the type of trails we run down here. The front end also tends to lift when climbing which is not helpful. It's not horrible but not my first or even second choice.

My suggestion for a 3 link was because if you have a drag link, when the suspension is cycled the drag link articulates thorugh and arc pushing and pulling on the steering knuckle which would cause some bump steer. If driving on the street, I would want to avoid that. By using a trac bar set up in the same plane as the drag link, the axle is forced side to side when articulating keeping the drag link from pushing or pulling on the knuckle. Since this is an offroad only vehicle, or if one was running full hydraulic steering, I'd go double triangulated 4 link if possible.

[tjrider]

So can you build a 3 link with factory link mounts? Or is it a custom application? I mean axle side

[kentuckytwostep]

tjrider
To understand how the radius arm fails, grab a broom stick with both hands and hold it out infront of you with your elbows at your side bent at a 90 degree angle. now grip the stick real hard and lower one hand (yes, I just said that) and raise the other as if the stick is the axle and your arms are the radius arms. Feel how the broom stick wants to twist in one hand or the other? that is what the axle housing is feeling when radius arms articulate. So you'll either break welds where the axle tubes are pressed into the chunk (what my old XJ did) or it will just bind up and not articulate very well. And what I hated most about radius arms is thier tendency to lift when you accelerate, which is not good when you are climbing a steep ledge/hill.

If you're worried about the single upper do like I did. design your lowers centered with the axle so they take all head on impacts. Then all the upper is doing is preventing the axle from spinning under acceleration or braking. This means that durring forward motion the upper is under compression = no problem :).

Depends on what you want to do. desert race (4link, radius arm) or rock krawl (3link, 4link) or run mud pits (whophucken cares).

[tjrider]

So are we building our own 3 link set up or buying a kit?