Update: Rear Axle Tube - 1200 Miles Warranty Covered

[Justb211]

I know it can be done, my question was why? Not necessary for wheeling and yes, I fully understand the costs of lifting an IFS. Been posting on that topic for almost 3 years now off and on.

Just like a Wrangler, to do serious rock crawling and wheeling, gonna cost you $25K or more. In the early days, guys on here laughed and really came at me on the costs for lifts and consequences. Those dudes are quiet or no longer posting here now, as I figured and predicted.

The cost of building a quality crawler or go fast desert car are not cheap in any way. I built junk yard axles for my old 4600 car and still cost me close to 14k just in the axles. Then it’s conversions to triangulated suspensions then having to change to a fuel cell plus cage comms and a much more, then you quickly spent 50k and that’s not including the initial cost of the vehicle and doing the build yourself including fab work. I just find a lot of people are all about the bling like lights, wheels, tires and neglect axle upgrades then complain when something breaks. I have a raptor and wheeled it once in mass at mabell now if I want to keep it there are many upgrades I need to do but not sure if it’s even worth it. I think I would rather just build a tube chassis before modifying the Braptor because I have a tendency of going overboard.

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[Heckler]

SAS if from factory, or Ford Performance offers an after market lift.

Interesting, I have Hoss 3.0 and would like to keep it but proper lift options for it I have yet to see without preloading the springs or causing drive line angles.

 

[mcinfantry]

I’ve always done 60/14 bolts for driver/wheeler

I’m not touching the suspension other than at most a rack upgrade.

the hole is bottomless, and I can actually fab and do the work and have.

 

[dgorsett]

Theory: stock control arms are short and fairly level, angle slightly upward on non sas and slighly downward on sas. With much lift they will angle down a lot. When one side is compressed it effectively gets longer, the other extended side gets shorter, exaggerates with lift. This essentially twists the axle causing the tubes to separate from welds. Not a huge deal stock with the arms fairly level. Inflexible aftermarket bushings make it worse.

A solution would be long arms.

 

[Tricky Dick]

I’ve always done 60/14 bolts for driver/wheeler

I’m not touching the suspension other than at most a rack upgrade.

the hole is bottomless, and I can actually fab and do the work and have.

You know it! Which is why I'm staying mild as well. I was able to buy a Bronco 2 and build D60/10.5 with gears and e-lockers for about the price of just a 74Weld rack. Obviously there's a bit more to go but it's going to be a lot stouter than my 6G and if/when it does break it goes on the trailer and I still have a very streetable 6G to drive.

 

[Ryslegit]

I went out to check mine. The plug welds looked ok but I saw this on the driver side of the axle. I’m on stock SAS suspension

 

[Strizzo]

I went out to check mine. The plug welds looked ok but I saw this on the driver side of the axle. I’m on stock SAS suspension

That looks like its leaking out the vent a bit. Check that hose and make sure its not cut or something.

 

[Ryslegit]

That looks like its leaking out the vent a bit. Check that hose and make sure its not cut or something.

I was thinking the same. I’ll be having the dealer check it further when I take it in for another issue.

 

[NatureBoy]

What did your 4runner have on it, 37's and a gear ratio equal or better than 4.46? and what axle(s)?

Not being a negative-Nancy here, there's just a lot to consider when pushing much larger heavier tires.

A.) the 37's are not the problem item:
Has anyone seen the 35's the Sasquatch comes with off the wheel? (I don't know if you had Sasquatch or not, just making the point for the upgraded package) They're light and skinny tires. I'm pretty sure any 35 inch you purchase after a Sasquatch package is going to weigh significantly more, much less a 37 inch tire. They found the lightest 35 inch tire they could to put this on the road for MPG and I'd wager strain.

B.) I feel 4.46 isn't enough for wheeling with 37s with added strain and weight when pushing it, just my opinion. Maybe light wheeling, sure.

C.) TTA, TTA is not a gimmick. There's a reason they incorporated it, because it's a tool that gained popularity in the off-road world and comes in very handy when needed. Not for performing burnouts flooring it just because that's what they saw advertised in a Bronco Off-Roadeo video.

From reading many posts, most here either have little or no wheeling experience.
A good amount do.

And those that think it has no use have either only wheeled in what you have pictured above, in wide open spaces, Moab, or some place with no obstacles. They have not wheeled in tightly wooded trails, with wet giant rocks surrounding the vehicle, slippery tight corners and angles, or have been involved with a truck/jeep/buggy/truggy that slips and falls off a trail due to error, loose mud, ice, or into an unintended angled fall, downhill, without the ability to back out safely without taking damage or spending 2 hours trying to winch out.

Yes, TTA has a use, just not what the 99.999% here are purchasing a Bronco for or going off road for the first time.

Truth bomb

 

[Combustion_King]

I checked mine out yesterday and they seemed pretty decent, not perfect but what can you do? I have no plans to upgrade tire size or suspension etc, so I'm hoping stock, I shouldn't see this issue.
My off road terrain is logging roads with rocks and mud, ruts, roots etc. New England style, no long twisted out red rock climbs for me.

 

[SuperFord]

anyone else considering running 37’s…

It turns out (Ford claims) my 37” tires caused too much torque on the rear axle and caused it to twist, breaking the plug welds…

…As of right now I’m told warranty won’t cover the repair

First of all “Ford” didn’t claim anything. “Ford” also didn’t deny your warranty claim.

One random technician at your local dealership gave his opinion and the service advisor who doesn’t know and could care less went along with it. Best case scenario, the service manager declined the repair.

Your dealership’s people and Ford are not the same thing. This is a very important distinction that most people don’t understand.

if you bought the vehicle there then go speak with the GM. There is no reason they can’t warranty this repair other than that they have taken a stance and would be embarrassed and uncomfortable reversing it.

As an alternative option, put your stock tires back on and take it to another dealer for a second opinion. Don’t mention anything about the first dealers judgement.

Just, “Customer states seeing oil drip / spots on driveway.”

 

[kgolive]

First of all “Ford” didn’t claim anything. “Ford” also didn’t deny your warranty claim.

One random technician at your local dealership gave his opinion and the service advisor who doesn’t know and could care less went along with it. Best case scenario, the service manager declined the repair.

Your dealership’s people and Ford are not the same thing. This is a very important distinction that most people don’t understand.

if you bought the vehicle there then go speak with the GM. There is no reason they can’t warranty this repair other than that they have taken a stance and would be embarrassed and uncomfortable reversing it.

As an alternative option, put your stock tires back on and take it to another dealer for a second opinion. Don’t mention anything about the first dealers judgement.

Just, “Customer states seeing oil drip / spots on driveway.”

I originally took it to Huntington Beach Ford and yes I think exactly like you said, they put little effort into it and the service manager said he wouldn’t help in any way. I hear nothing but bad things about that dealership anyway but it’s one block from my house so I thought I’d give it a shot first. I then took it to my store Norm Reeves Ford Cerritos where I’m waiting for a field tech (I believe) to take a look at it. And when I was asked what the symptoms were I said exactly that, leaking oil from rear diff. Because that’s the single and only reason I brought it in to begin with, because I saw oil leaking from the diff. I will update once I receive a response. I was told it could take weeks, even a month before someone comes out to look at it.

 

[TeocaliMG]

Edit: After reviewing the suspension geometry in more detail, the conclusion that rigid type links will cause bind is not really accurate. There are a lot of factors to consider
In my description below I did not account for the fact that the top links are semi triangulated. This is not nearly enough to be considered a triangulated set up, but with the axle mounts pushed inwards towards the center of the axle, the misalignment between the two in articulation is vastly reduced. Additionally with linkages angled slightly towards the center, you need to take into account the plan view and rear view motion, not just the side view, to determine the projected length of each linkage in the side view.

Regardless, I will leave this comment up for those who want to understand a bit more about how the rear suspension moves:

I want to share a simple diagram I made that illustrates the suspension bind myself and some others were talking about. Even if its not the root cause in this case, it is worth considering when looking into suspension components with compliant joints vs rigid joints. (on OEM suspension geometry)

(This is not to scale)

The upper control arm and lower control arm are different lengths and not parallel. The angle between them is more relevant than the difference in length in this case. Because the arms are not parallel, (and to a lesser degree, different lengths), as the suspension moves up or down, the axle rotates forward and backward. The primary goal of this is to help counteract the forces that squat or jack the rear suspension during forward acceleration or braking. You can visualize this by imagining the torque induced at the axle by brake or driveline torque, and how it wants to lift or lower the suspension. For example, you step on the gas, the wheel torque is counter clockwise, the reaction torque at the axle is clockwise, which wants to pull the suspension down because of the angle of the links. This helps counteract the rear squat that naturally occurs as the vehicle accelerates forward and weight is transferred to the rear. The opposite is true for braking. A secondary goal of this is to help the axle pinion angle stay more aligned to the transmission or carrier bearing throughout the suspension travel. And of course beyond both of these goals there are all kinds of packaging limitations, costs, weight, durability, and NVH to consider.

Now lets look at the suspension when one side is all the way up, and the other is all the way down. (again, not to scale)

You can see that if the joints both at the frame and axle have no compliance, the axle is forced to be at a different angle between the left and right side. (Edit, this is true if the linkages are parellel from the top or rear view, but not in the side view. For the Bronco, they are actually angled slightly in all views to compensate for this misalignment)

From the OEM perspective, the bushings themselves give. This not only helps NVH, and long term durability of the joint, it allows the axle to behave and handle well on flat surfaces as well as give the compliance needed to articulate reasonably well.

Triangulated is widely regarded as the best solution (deletes the track bar) but is also the hardest to pull off in an otherwise OEM set up. Aftermarket may offer solutions to run longer and more parallel arms (requires different frame/axle mounts) as a good solution and alternative to triangulating links or deleting a link.

Disclaimer that this is not professional advice, just take this as my observations. Much of this can be found and explained in engineering vehicle dynamics books.

 

[kgolive]

I just received news that it will be covered and replaced under warranty. Do not quote me on this but the response I received was that the Ford field rep has seen a number of these with the exact same issue and it is believed to be a bad batch of rear assemblies.

 

[broncobase1]

Should the Kraken be summoned? Not much different than ADMs on Reservation Holders.
37s are the new 33s and are not the reason this happened. Burden of proof lay with the manufacture.

With all due respect you don't know a lot about mechanical design. Of course 37" tires are going to put more strain on components than 33, and what's with the new 33" nonsense? You can have an opinion that it shouldn't have failed and that's fine, but no manufacture is going to warrantee parts affected by this kind of modifications. Typically damage caused by hard-core off roading isn't going to be covered either. I know a Jeep owner who spent $3000 in repairs after off roading, and he said its not uncommon.

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