Update on Broken Bronco steering rack Failure

[tmason10]

So this week has been quite the week. From Texas to Moab, to tie rods canyon in Las Vegas then Sand Hallow doing the maze with Lite Brite. This trip was desired to be running Hydro Steering with our new in house built tie rods. Due to time constraints we were forced to do this trip with the upgraded tire rod components and going off of a New stock steering rack that I had installed right before leaving for the trip. First break was in Moab when one of the components of our connection to the stock rack broke due to the stress of the geometry and running 40s. we had brought extra parts so I was able to make a few minor adjustments and continue on our way on the trail. However we had to cut Moab short Due to continued failures and lack of replacement parts. We left and headed for Southern Utah where we were able to get more parts to continue trying additional changes. We went out with a local jeep group and drove tie rod Canyon. Tie rod canyon continued breaking more of our components that we had built.

After Tie rod We were able to find different Heim joints in Las Vegas that allowed steeper angle articulation without adding stress to the bolts. We worked until late in the night at my brother-in-law shop in Las Vegas to completely re-fabricate our set up. The next morning was a run with LiteBrite nation and at this point we were out of time to further test. We showed up and our new steering set up worked beautifully. However early on in the course due to all the added stress, as expected may happen we stripped out the new rack and lost mechanical use of steering. So at this point it was back to the drawing board.
I will cut this part of the story slightly short As I will not share a lot of my details of what I found and how I am fixing it. I took my knowledge of what happened and my knowledge of already disassembling a full rack and went back to figure out how I could fix the failure point. I have now come up with a fix and a way to eliminate rack failure in the future!

So yesterday was my testing day! I ran with my new fix on the rack and my new steering components the bronco for about 130 miles of extreme off-road abuse starting at 8 o’clock in the morning and not finishing till about 1 o’clock this morning. Turning 40s and climbing just about everything! not only did I fix the rack but it did not fail again once during all of this extreme abuse yesterday!

My dilemma at this point is do I really want to start another business and take this knowledge that I have to market?

Also from 8:00 last night to 1:00 this morning was running with a great group of Jeepers in Vegas! Bronco beat every vehicle there.

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[Razorbak86]

My dilemma at this point is do I really want to start another business and take this knowledge that I have to market?

“Do or do not. There is no try.”
— Yoda

 

[j_marinelli]

Thank you for sharing!

 

[Hey19]

While the demand may be low at first, I'm sure there will be more and more of those that will need this fix you have figured out.

 

[Werkedperformance]

My dilemma at this point is do I really want to start another business and take this knowledge that I have to market?

If you don't like making money someone else does.

 

[Ripcurl]

Make some money off your secret sauce......its the American way

What's the warranty gonna look like?

 

[BAUS67]

I just saw this on IG from Loren Healy.



although it looks like he has longer lower control arms and without a doubt it still uses stock rack. So might not help your situation @tmason10

You have probably have already seen this but thought I would just throw it in here for others to see.

 

[rcman989]

This tie rod position is going to drastically affect toe change through wheel travel. Basic suspension geometry is you want the UCA, LCA and tie rod all in “phase” being the same angle. With this being level and the UCA and LCA angled downwards from the lift it puts everything out of phase. This affects ABS systems since the steering system and much more when raising the tie rod end that much. Just my $.02

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