I’m not a mech engineer or anything, but won’t stainless on aluminium cause corrosion problems?
You’re thinking of galvanic corrosion. Its not too bad with aluminum on stainless though, so i wouldnt be concerned.
Stainless fasteners have been used with aluminum fittings for decades in the marine industry. A bit of anti seize compound can be used if it’s a concern.
I’d be skeptical of loading on aluminum threads with that little engagment. Using a threaded hole is a good shout though, id just stick with a stainless for this part - it actually doesnt add much cost.
What about getting rid of that protruding part on the vertical hole and making the hole into a U-slot? Would make for easier machining I’d think
You typically only have 3 load bearing threads on bolts, however, I would probably make it thicker if it were to be threaded too
I think there would be plenty of thread, but you could make it a stud instead of a bolt, red loctite the stud into the aluminum block.
Yeah there will be plenty of thread engagement. When I remove that cut out for the nut, it will be a pretty solid block.
I’ll get quotes for both aluminum 6061, 7075, and stainless to see the prices.
If I do aluminum, I am going to oversize the threaded hole and use steel coil insert for strength and longevity.
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Got some quotes on medium complexity cnc (left), easy complexity (middle), and working on a diy option (right).
right now they were quoted at
- medium $35 per L+R pair, so $70 for front and back
- easy $18 per pair, $36 all around
- diy $12 total … I am currently optimizing this to work with 3/4"x3/4" aluminum bar. should be able to do with a chop saw, drill and tap.
I am going to try out the diy option when i have some time. The pricing above was for a group of 10-20 setups. one off would be double the price approximately. all of these options required some post processing too. 6061 aluminum.
Ill also try casting some of the more complex designs if I can find a good alloy that will be reasonably strong when vacuum cast.
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Lol that seems about right - good luck though!
Any progress?
Come back in stock already 
Quick update on my end. Just tracking some hardware swaps etc. some of this stuff is old news, but I’ll just list out what I currently have done.
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thicker coupling nut with opposing threads. This makes the linkage system a little more rigid and also allows for easy adjustment as spinning the nut allows lengthens or shortens the rods without having to take bolts out.
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retaining compound on the main bearing. I think the main bearing was slightly shifting within the beak. Retaining compound should lock this in place together. This seemed to reduce clicking noise, but I still have clicking.
-2mm spacer at the rod ends (pics). This allows the rod ends their full range of motion without the rod end housing contacting anything.
- helicoil steel inserts in the beak. Through wear and tear I was having issues with the aluminum threads. Their ultimate strength is sufficient, but their wear charactistics are not. If the bolt is loosening and tightening all the time, the the threads wear and can strip. Also swapping hardware a bunch of times doesn’t help this. I drilled out the exiting threads and inserted 1d threaded inserts. This is very tricky and I wouldn’t reccomend it.
-12.9 hardware strength “beak” bolts. 20mm length. I swapped high strength bolts in and used a permanent bond red locktight (strongest I could find). To lock these in place. 20mm seems to allow the best thread engagement.
This connection does not have much thread engagement to spare. It is critical to utilize all the threads possible.
At the axel sleve connection, I am using 10.9 hardware x30mm with blue locktite. If I need to disassemble the trucks my plan is to leave the beak bolts in place and undo the truck axel bolts, hence the blue locktite. The axel bolts are 30 mm and have significantly more engagement hence the blue locktite.
12.9 bolts are high strength, but more brittle. This is an experiment so I’ll see how it goes.
I’ve have some very fun long rides in these trucks. I’m hoping that the setup I have now will be worry free and high performing. I’ll check back in if there are any notable updates.
Previous I had been using 3mm spacers. The spacers allow the rod ends to articulate freely, but at the expense of an eccentric load on the bolt.
I think the 3mm was excessive, so I have dropped it down to 2mm.
When I was running 3mm spacers, one of my beak bolts snapped after a few hundred miles. I would guess due to the increased load from the spacers, but it is hard to tell. Qc on bolts could have played a role as well.
Nothing earth shattering here, just sharing the setup that I think will work well for me.
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Felt like fall on earth for couple months
I’ve been working on a new method to solve and improve the 3-link truck design. My patented solution, the Swing-Arm Truck Design (SAT), offers more precise leaning, eliminates hanger rotation, and features lower ground clearance, and without modify the bushings!
Video is my first prototype for showing the structure, I’m on the period doing road testing for my v3 truck.
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So a channel truck?
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Channel doesn’t lean that much. Leverage and response definitely is next level.
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Interesting, so you only need a single bushing?
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Did you ever get your triple links going? Shame it looks like they’ve already been made redundant and discontinued
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Hey @jamie
I flagged this as off topic and he immediately edited it to avoid it getting removed.
What is forum policy on this? Policy on raiding a merchant’s thread by parties of a competing merchant?
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