74 Weld Steering Rack (SAVE YOUR CASH)

[ScLeCo]

The 74 Weld "stage 3" steering rack is something like $5,500. Holy shit it must be AMAZING!
It is amazing. An amazing waste of money.
You can buy FOUR (4) HOSS 3.0 racks for that. But wait you say, "buy once, cry once" They have a LIFETIME WARRANTY. You'll never have to buy another steering rack in your life!
Maybe. Maybe you'll never have to buy another steering rack housing again. But you will have to buy a new HOSS 3.0 rack again if you damage the internals.

Everyone knows that the "fuse" in the steering system is the tie rods. My advice to everyone is to keep that as your fuse. When you have a 74 weld steering rack with RPG tierods and a double shear connection the "fuse" becomes the steering rack itself (the actual steering rack bar specifically).

To replace this 74 weld charges $2086. As you may notice this is more than the cost of an entire HOSS 3.0. Because that's what you're buying and then the labor costs to swap it out.

"Lifetime warranty" did not mean what I thought it meant.

TLDR. Tie rods are exponentially cheaper and easier to replace than steering racks. But even in the extreme case of having to replace a steering rack it's way easier and cheaper to just put in a replacement 3.0 rack. (I know, DUH)

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[V1Rotate]

I've always held that the most cost effective and best current solution is a 3.0 rack and stock tie rods with 2 or 3 spares tucked in the kit and the tools to change them.

 

[popo_patty]

I have a healthy amount of tie rods on stock for me and my group. And be it as it may, I also have BB’s tie rods braces. Not installed but ready to be used as a splice for anyone that may need. I just happened to have some so I’ve kept em in my tool box.

 

[projectbadlands]

I have a similar mentality. I have the 2.0 steering that came in the stock 2021 Badlands. I swapped out the tie rods with the Fabtech Heims and gave me so much more confidence until I realized I made the rack the fuse. I removed them and went back to stock tie rods. I carry spares with me now.

 

[swamp2]

Interesting perspective and probably true for 95% of us.

Now that said, if one really wants to wheel/crawl hard and doesn't want to replace any parts (almost ever), the 74W system and upgraded tie rods makes sense. Of course as long as you have deep pockets.

Perhaps an even better solution would be a new tie rod design that instead of being nearly indestructible (RPG, FMI) but rather scales up in strength along with the 74W rack so that it still remains a "fuse" for the new system. That might be the absolute best setup. Any upgraded system should absolutely have such a fuse.

Also, FYI, the RPG Raptor tie rods are not double shear . Here is the Carli Bronco (non Raptor) double shear system. A thing of beauty.

*EDIT* - I see that with 74W portals there is a dual shear option for RPG tie rods. But again outside of this special case, Carli makes the only dual shear system and unfortunately, not for Raptor.

 

[mpeugeot]

The 74 Weld "stage 3" steering rack is something like $5,500. Holy shit it must be AMAZING!
It is amazing. An amazing waste of money.
You can buy FOUR (4) HOSS 3.0 racks for that. But wait you say, "buy once, cry once" They have a LIFETIME WARRANTY. You'll never have to buy another steering rack in your life!
Maybe. Maybe you'll never have to buy another steering rack housing again. But you will have to buy a new HOSS 3.0 rack again if you damage the internals.

Everyone knows that the "fuse" in the steering system is the tie rods. My advice to everyone is to keep that as your fuse. When you have a 74 weld steering rack with RPG tierods and a double shear connection the "fuse" becomes the steering rack itself (the actual steering rack bar specifically).

To replace this 74 weld charges $2086. As you may notice this is more than the cost of an entire HOSS 3.0. Because that's what you're buying and then the labor costs to swap it out.

"Lifetime warranty" did not mean what I thought it meant.

TLDR. Tie rods are exponentially cheaper and easier to replace than steering racks. But even in the extreme case of having to replace a steering rack it's way easier and cheaper to just put in a replacement 3.0 rack. (I know, DUH)

Well that sucks.

 

[ScLeCo]

Well that sucks.

Yup. When 74 weld says "if you break it we'll replace it, no questions asked" They're lying.

 

[SierraBronco]

I have a healthy amount of tie rods on stock for me and my group. And be it as it may, I also have BB’s tie rods braces. Not installed but ready to be used as a splice for anyone that may need. I just happened to have some so I’ve kept em in my tool box.

Yeah we carry both sizes of factory tierods as spares and neither of them will even work on our ride due to the double shear.

 

[ScLeCo]

Yeah we carry both sizes of factory tierods as spares and neither of them will even work on our ride due to the double shear.

You can go back to single. You just unbolt the upper mount. I ran it that way for a week with the stock tie rods waiting for the RPG rods to arrive.
It's what I'm going back to now. Of course I sold two sets of 3.0 tie rods thinking I wouldn't need them. So now I have to go buy some more.

 

[SierraBronco]

Interesting perspective and probably true for 95% of us.

Now that said, if one really wants to wheel/crawl hard and doesn't want to replace any parts (almost ever), the 74W system and upgraded tie rods makes sense. Of course as long as you have deep pockets.

Any upgraded system should absolutely have such a fuse.

y

Seems that the problem is that we were led to believe this is the ultimate bulletproof system. Lifetime warranty-no questions asked. Get this rack and RPG double shear tierods. If anything breaks we replace it. But then it turns out that there are asterisks to that claim and it only applies to the housing. Between the rack, tierods, and upgrade to double shear on the portals you’re looking at what-$7500? Though they’ll likely give you a discount if you buy it with the portals so let’s call it $6500. Not cheap but we spent the money to not have these kinds of problems.

Interesting timing on this as a few days ago I asked 74W if I could buy new bushings to take the double shear out and go back to conventional tierods.

 

[SierraBronco]

You can go back to single. You just unbolt the upper mount. I ran it that way for a week with the stock tie rods waiting for the RPG rods to arrive.
It's what I'm going back to now. Of course I sold two sets of 3.0 tie rods thinking I wouldn't need them. So now I have to go buy some more.

You don’t need to replace the bushing to get the taper back? They need to be drilled out with a 5/8” bolt for the double shear. I think I’d prefer to have the taper so there’s not a potential for shit to wobble around. **portal PTSD kicks in**

 

[mpeugeot]

Seems that the problem is that we were led to believe this is the ultimate bulletproof system. Lifetime warranty-no questions asked.
...

Between the rack, tierods, and upgrade to double shear on the portals you’re looking at what-$7500? Though they’ll likely give you a discount if you buy it with the portals so let’s call it $6500. Not cheap but we spent the money to not have these kinds of problems.

Exactly. Because they act as if they have solved any potential issues with the rack, but really, they haven't. Did they improve the situation? Sure, but not enough to justify the money spent vs just replacing racks when they break. I think that the biggest thing is that they are not user serviceable, making it a $2300 repair.

 

[orion]

Exactly. Because they act as if they have solved any potential issues with the rack, but really, they haven't. Did they improve the situation? Sure, but not enough to justify the money spent vs just replacing racks when they break. I think that the biggest thing is that they are not user serviceable, making it a $2300 repair.

Glad I bought my Vasher Designs housing and Carli setup, user serviceable...

And so far, so good...

 

[BigMeatsBronco]

Exactly. Because they act as if they have solved any potential issues with the rack, but really, they haven't. Did they improve the situation? Sure, but not enough to justify the money spent vs just replacing racks when they break. I think that the biggest thing is that they are not user serviceable, making it a $2300 repair.

Why do you say it's not user serviceable? 74weld sent me an empty housing to install my 3.0 parts myself. While I agree it's totally overpriced there is no alternative and until the Chinese come out with something that's cheap and sturdy there aren't very many alternatives. I do appreciate 74 welds stepping up and actually creating a part that works for all of us although I think they're missing the market pricing and volume , by not advertising the part for F-150s Raptors, Rangers and others. On the other side of this there are areas especially on the input side of the 74 weld rack that needs definite improvements in fact I'm working on this right now independently of Quinn however he has agreed to send me a free top cap on the input side to machine out and press in an actual bearing. The factory set up uses the bushing instead and the 74 well just follows the OEM Construction in this area. When you're running 41 in tires like I am and you put them up against the curb and try and turn the tires that puts an immense amount of force on that upper portion of the input shaft right before the U-joint. Mine wobbles at least a quarter inch side to side (as do most of the OEM ones.)

Lots of things are overpriced these days even the Spicer ultimate rear axle that I purchased is not really that great of a deal when you consider the production price cost of the m220 selling point and you factor in that the u60 still has semi float axles. Most of these cost problems are directly related to lack of volume, it's not like spicers out selling thousands of these replacement axles. Same thing for 74 welds micro Market on these steering racks. I'm just thankful that somebody with a good machine shop has stepped up to the plate so I don't actually have to pay my guy to do it. Custom machine work is even more expensive.

 

[indio22]

I'd love a nearly indestructible $300 Saginaw unit but that's not in the cards we're dealt.

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