Market research for JK gear

[Magnum PI]

Originally Posted by YankeeDave

Front bar- Sent away for crash testing. I now need to hassle the testing lab to push it through, but he's busy. I'm hoping that in 4 weeks i have an answer on Air bag compliance, after that production run is roughly 5 weeks. So I hope to have the first production run ready before christmas.

Rear diff brace- The brace is really there to stop the diff bending up (smiling at you) and not stop front and rear forces (minimal on a diff.) So with that said I'm not going to add gussets to between the saddles and the main section as it would do little to add strength, but add a lot of cost. The speed holes are their for 2 reasons (not formed for strength.) 1. to reduce the weight with out making the whole unit weaker. 2. allow access for the diff breather. Offering a weld on version is only a flick of a mouse on CAD and will obviously be much cheaper. So yes this will also be on offer

Rear bar- The new design is similar to the existing one on my car bar a few changes. The tyre carrier now opens with the rear door not a seperate latch. The winch mount bolts on the outside of the bar instead of the inside so the whole bar does not need to be removed to add the winch. Great for adding just before a trip and not carrying a winch all week long on the back. The jerry can holders are much smaller and sleek. High lift jack holder added.

JK tube doors- nearly ready

JK sliders- This is my next project. I'm going to try for chassis mounted.

JK body cladding- will also be on offer

Front bolt on diff brace, hopefully before christmas, but most likely after.

Roof rack ready early next year

In other news, 2 awsome Ausjeep members have come forward to offer the following services.
1. website design
2. hard top roof rack design
3. table tray for rear door

All sounds good Dave, will diff slide be a option or a standard for the rear diff brace?

[YankeeDave]

I'll look at a diff slide early next year

[MightyMouse]

Its not the saddles to the brace that's the issue its the "ears" - the bits where the bolts are - back to the saddles.

Given the fact that there's no flex permitted if its going to actually stiffen the tubes / centre then the saddles must be rigid and a unbraced bend will flex.

Needs fixing Dave otherwise it will look cool but not achieve its design intent.

[JasperJ]

Dave I see what, MM is saying. when you tighten down the bolts through the saddle arrangement it can actually deform the saddle as the ear bends up (although they do look pretty beefy), thereby reducing the contact area. How about replacing the saddle arrangement with a kick ass pair u-bolts at each end?


It'd give a cleaner appearance to the diff and less crap to get hung up on. (Says a guy with AEV drop brackets)

Other than that it looks great mate.

Hey MM if you don't like seeing the logo, you could just turn it around. It looks like it would fit both ways.

[MightyMouse]

Or a tube and pinch bolts each side..... Couldn't find a picture exactly like I wanted but this shows the basic idea on a control arm



Done properly ( of course ) there would be very little bending moment applied to the fasteners, especially as the radius where the sleeves would be welded would be quite shallow

[YankeeDave]

took me all night, but I just ran a finite element analysis on the diff truss and got the following results

overall rigidity of the diff is up 56% with the truss

and Ross very minimal load transfered to the ears of the saddles or the bolts. Easily accounted for by the 12 high tensile bolts. All that is needed is for the saddles to pull the flats of the truss down to the diff housing which then creates the rigid structure with the diff housing. This new rigid structure must be overcome before the ears of the saddles take load.

It's not the saddles that take the load, its the truss.

[S.Bartfast]

Originally Posted by YankeeDave

Roof rack ready early next year

In other news, 2 awsome Ausjeep members have come forward to offer the following services.
1. website design
2. hard top roof rack design
3. table tray for rear door

I'd be very interested to see a concept design for the roof rack if you have anything. I have done a significant amount of work in designing a hard top roof rack of my own and would be most keen to share ideas if you're interested.

I'm hoping to start building the roof rack I've been working on soon but while the rack itself is very well designed I am an absolute novice when it comes to fabrication, so if you're interested in collaborating there may well be some good opportunity to help each other out.