Trail Militia is going there: 74Weld vs Werewolf Portals

[SierraBronco]

I am there with you.... I know enough to be dangerous. That is about it, and dangerous seems to just get me in trouble.... LOL....

Speaking of…

Double checking their work to see if the dowels actually got installed and holy crap. They must have used 271 on these things. Attached is peak breakaway torque values on two bolts. And it definitely felt like it. Went ahead and stopped and have brakleen soaking the threads right now. We’ll see what they are after this sits for a bit. They were supposed to be torqued up to 36 lbs/ft with the nordlocks if I remember correctly

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[GreyZ]

Im in strong support of the wrong washer theory. And probably torqued correctly. This would mean that with these super thick washers, the ball joint bolt never bottomed out. The washer loaded up the outer edge, outside of the seat and never touched the seat surface. Then when driving the washer creep loaded and lost tension. This allowed the ball joint to free float and bang around in the seat of the upright and caused the failure. Shock fatigue on aluminum is BRUTAL.

With the thickness we are seeing on these and out of 7075, I struggle to see how it is a design flaw in the upright and more of an issue with an incorrect washer and a bad install. An incorrect taper angle seat could explain it though.....

Being sensitive to any subtle rock back at low speed or clunk when having aftermarked arms like this should be an emergency feeling and warning. I have experienced a near identical failure on my Z with basically the same problem. I would be willing to bet when tapping the brakes at 1-2 mph you could feel a clunk and rock long before failure like this occured.

 

[GreyZ]

We’ll see if this finds anything. Hopefully the anodizing doesn’t make it difficult. I’ll share the results either way.

https://www.grainger.com/product/80...Vh31bXhUHJctyQbyQx9g39ofgOrcAvGwaAq8CEALw_wcB

Anodize will 100% hide a material defect to penetrant dye inspection. By the time the crack is large enough with ano to show in a penetrant test, you are on borrowed time.


Regardless it is a pretty tricky process on machined parts like these to avoid false positives. I would really only trust this test if the ano was stripped and the test was done with the upright removed and very very clean. at a minimum get it as clean as possible and only apply the dye with a qtip, 10 minute dry, dry cloth wipe, cloth sprayed with remover wipe, and then sprayed developer.

 

[SierraBronco]

Anodize will 100% hide a material defect to penetrant dye inspection. By the time the crack is large enough with ano to show in a penetrant test, you are on borrowed time.


Regardless it is a pretty tricky process on machined parts like these to avoid false positives. I would really only trust this test if the ano was stripped and the test was done with the upright removed and very very clean. at a minimum get it as clean as possible and only apply the dye with a qtip, 10 minute dry, dry cloth wipe, cloth sprayed with remover wipe, and then sprayed developer.

Thank you for the tips! I’m not too keen on trying to remove the anodizing-they’d probably blame any failures on that. There is ultrasonic testing available locally if I’m going to remove the things anyway, but I’m not sure how much that’s going to cost or how truly useful it will be for this application. And it’s not like I’ll be expecting any kind of reimbursement - already have more than 10% of the initial portal cost sunk into these things. And again-seems the consensus so far is that it is likely an installation issue.

 

[Razorback]

From this angle on mine, you can tell it's not a seam, but a milling line like @5GENIDN said. I have the same line but it doesn't continue on the bottom. Infact, it stops where the milling stops leaving a bit untouched before you get to the bottom.

Also of note, when I replaced the caliper brackets, the original bolts were still torqued to spec so I was thankful for that! Little consolation to @SierraBronco but hopefully it's smooth sailing over the rocks from here.

 

[SierraBronco]

From this angle on mine, you can tell it's not a seam, but a milling line like @5GENIDN said. I have the same line but it doesn't continue on the bottom. Infact, it stops where the milling stops leaving a bit untouched before you get to the bottom.

Also of note, when I replaced the caliper brackets, the original bolts were still torqued to spec so I was thankful for that! Little consolation to @SierraBronco but hopefully it's smooth sailing over the rocks from here.

Luckily for us we were randomly contacted by an unfortunate owner warning us to check our bolts after his brakes fell off. I feel certain that had it not been for him our brakes would have fallen off on the interstate on our way to Moab. 74weld said nothing until enough of us from the forum said they also had the same loose bolts. I truly believe if it weren’t for this board, especially the observations from @Bikeric and @Snacktime, they would have continued saying it was a customer issue not correctly applying loctite up until being in a courtroom after a fatality.

 

[mpeugeot]

Get on that Spare Bronco Pick-a-Part plan, financing available.

That’s why 7% of 2025 Bronco production is going to be Base model Broncos, of which around 1% will be the 2 door Base Bronco.

6% of all 2025 Bronco production will be 2 doors, of which 2% are Stroppe, probably 3% Badlands, and 1% Base (at most). That leaves 6% of 2025 production for spare part Broncos, roughly 3k Sasquatch ($40k) and 3k Non-Sasquatch base models ($50k).

 

[SierraBronco]

Another recent buyer of 74w Toyota portals sent this to me. No signs of cracking that he can tell. Maybe there are details on the instructions but the washer isn’t flush on his either. It’s hard to tell but it also looks to be concave…

 

[Lcubed]

Another recent buyer of 74w Toyota portals sent this to me. No signs of cracking that he can tell. Maybe there are details on the instructions but the washer isn’t flush on his either. It’s hard to tell but it also looks to be concave…

for some reason, i would have expected to see more thread clearing the nut

 

[ScLeCo]

What he said. ^
I can't tell from the pic but it doesn't look like there is enough thread engagement on that bolt.
That looks like all kinds of wrong.
Also, it looks like several various florescent paint cans exploded under that truck.

 

[Bikeric]

for some reason, i would have expected to see more thread clearing the nut

Yes, you should. The first couple of bolt threads are typically "mis-formed" to aid alignment with the mating threads. That is why the spec for exposed threads below a locknut nut like that are 3*Pitch of the bolt. You should be seeing about 1/4" of thread below that nut, but those washers are taking up that space. Now you have a locknut that is barely (if at all) touching deformed threads.

 

[SierraBronco]

Same owner tells me that they had the rear portals assembled backwards. Told him to open them up and swap housings. Which is interesting because they told me it would void the warranty if I opened ours to swap the housings instead of having a shop 600-800 miles away do it.

But now I’ll be waiting on swapping the housings out. The reason will soon be clear, and it’s not because the Bronco is at the dealer getting a new started installed under warranty.

Also-different Toyota with same washer

 

[Razorback]

I bet Brad Lovell's washers are flat... Great BroncBuster impersonation...

 

[SierraBronco]

What he said. ^
I can't tell from the pic but it doesn't look like there is enough thread engagement on that bolt.
That looks like all kinds of wrong.
Also, it looks like several various florescent paint cans exploded under that truck.

Looks like he has an aftermarket LCA with a uniball. So the 74w stuff must be thicker than the factory steel knuckle.

 

[ScLeCo]

Looks like he has an aftermarket LCA with a uniball. So the 74w stuff must be thicker than the factory steel knuckle.

Yeah, but you would think who ever installed that would just look at that and say,
nope this doesn't work.

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