Coppertop_01 Lower Chassis Brace.

[adrenalinerush04rl]

First let me start by saying the brace is awesome. And in no way am I bashing jeremy. Great guy. Now heres where the story begins.


Well....heres where things get bad. Unfortunately. Jeremy's always been there with answers to even the dumbest questions about this bar. So its not really a product bash...more of a bolt issue(really big issue).

I put the bar in yesterday. Very easy might I add(used a lift). Torqued the bolts to 41 lb ft(per a shop manual at my work).

I drove the car home yesterday and it made some clunking noise. Scared to hell I just went home and that was it. I drove to work this morning....it was clunking but not bad. I decided to pull the car back in and check the bolts again. Put the tq wrench on the first bolt and the head snapped off. The others looked the same as in they were almost ready to go. I went to back it out of the shop heard a loud clunk. Put it in 1st to bring it back in the garage and the bolts snapped...lower control arm fell out and the axle popped out.Mad Im quite angry at this and Im stranded with out a car for the next day or so. I got the drivers side bolts out and still need to do the passenger side.

Here's some pics...sorry for being all grainy and whatnot...i only had my phone at the time.


http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image000.jpg

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image004.jpg

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image005.jpg

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image006.jpg

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image007.jpg

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff318/04blownion/Image008.jpg

[coppertop_01]

Sorry for the problem man...........

I am not here to argue with chris, the bolt obviously failed, this is why I am not going to ship one more bar until I get the bolt situation resolved.

I am still baffled how this happened, I used 10.9 grade parts.........

I have a part number for the proper bolts, so I am going to check availablity of the bolts, and when I have shipped out replacements for the units that I have shipped allready.

Please if you have one installed, check your bolts, I've checked mine tonight, even before I found out about the problem...........I still haven't seen any of the problems that chris has had, but I won't say that it couldn't happen, cause obviously it did. If you notice that you have a simular problem, do not drive with them, replace the bolts with the stock ones, and remove the bar untill I ship you the proper bolt.

Jer

[bc3tech]

thanks for the prompt response & addressing of the issue Jer! this is what we like to see happen w/ our product reviews section. And thanks to chris for handling it the proper way. Hope to see everybody happy and look forward to a review on the new bolts w/ the bar!

[Periodic]

Wow..
I've only driven my car once with the subframe brace on. I loved it. I had no clunking problems or anything. Install was a bit of a bitch for the 4th bolt, but once we got it it was fine. I drove her pretty hard too to test it out.

Jer, excellent service man. It shows you care about your product to not sell anymore until a problem is fixed.

Adrenaline, man, that sucks so much. Good thing this didnt happen at high speed and you or someone else get hurt.

[Paulumbo]

HMMMMMM In thinking about this, my curiousity is raised. A metric 10.9 is a pretty strong bolt, with the exception of SHEAR, whichis what this sounds like. Jer, do you have a good pic of one of the bars installed where the bar attaches to the control arm?

The reason I ask is, as I remember (and one of the mods I was going to make) the bar actually mounted to the control arm nuts that are welded into the engine cradle as opposed to mounting to the actual cradle-again if I remember correctly. If this is the case, that would explain the bolts shearing-as the bar flexes, this will cause a shear condition and would show itself as such. This is merely PURE speculation. Jer-could you get a good pic of the bar where it bolts to the lower control arm? I think that may tell the story and if that's the case, I think it'd be an easy fix.

[Periodic]

Paul
I have some pictures here
http://www.ionforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=2593&highlight=
I made a review on redlineforums too...same post copy/paste...

hope it helps...

[Paulumbo]

Here's my thoughts. If you look at the second pic-I believe it's the right side in the pic-it looks like the mouting surface of the bar sits on the "nuts" that are welded into the cradle (big black thing that holds the engine in). If there is a bit of a gap, then this will compund the problem. The bolts for the control arm will see significant amounts of stress and force in a "normal" application.

Now what I think happened is as the control arm flexed (they flex more than you think), with the flange contactiong the thru bolts and nuts, there isn't enough surface area to dissipate the force exerted-which as the bar tries to stop the flex, the bolts then bear the burden of weight and KABOOM goes the bolt after it stretches and fatigues. I toss this explanation out there because......I've had this happen to me before (yep...been there done that). The way I resolved it was to make certain the bars mounting flange holes were big enough to sit flush against the frame. I plan on still getting one of these bars and I had also planned to mod it so that the flanges sit square on the frame and flush to the nuts-it SHOULD prevent this from happening as well as stop even more chassis flex. My plan was to get the barr and asses how much of a gap was there and trim some plate to go in there, weld it to the bar flange, then bolt in into the car that way.

The other item that may need to be addressed is I noticed there was a gap after tightening down the left side-this also puts the bolts under a huge amount of stress-it's good becuase it locks things down, but also stretches the hell out of the bolts-grade 8/10.9 bolts are pretty tough, so to beak these says something.

Just my thoughts-keep us posted on progress.

[adrenalinerush04rl]

Sorry for the problem man...........

I am not here to argue with chris, the bolt obviously failed, this is why I am not going to ship one more bar until I get the bolt situation resolved.

I am still baffled how this happened, I used 10.9 grade parts.........

I have a part number for the proper bolts, so I am going to check availablity of the bolts, and when I have shipped out replacements for the units that I have shipped allready.

Please if you have one installed, check your bolts, I've checked mine tonight, even before I found out about the problem...........I still haven't seen any of the problems that chris has had, but I won't say that it couldn't happen, cause obviously it did. If you notice that you have a simular problem, do not drive with them, replace the bolts with the stock ones, and remove the bar untill I ship you the proper bolt.

Jer


I know you arent here to argue with me man. Im very happy that you are working hard on fixing the problem. Like I said no problems with you or the craftsmanship of the bar. Just death to the bolts :lol:

This review is more of a warning about the bolts to everyone that has one installed

[Periodic]

Here's my thoughts. If you look at the second pic-I believe it's the right side in the pic-it looks like the mouting surface of the bar sits on the "nuts" that are welded into the cradle (big black thing that holds the engine in). If there is a bit of a gap, then this will compund the problem. The bolts for the control arm will see significant amounts of stress and force in a "normal" application.

Now what I think happened is as the control arm flexed (they flex more than you think), with the flange contactiong the thru bolts and nuts, there isn't enough surface area to dissipate the force exerted-which as the bar tries to stop the flex, the bolts then bear the burden of weight and KABOOM goes the bolt after it stretches and fatigues. I toss this explanation out there because......I've had this happen to me before (yep...been there done that). The way I resolved it was to make certain the bars mounting flange holes were big enough to sit flush against the frame. I plan on still getting one of these bars and I had also planned to mod it so that the flanges sit square on the frame and flush to the nuts-it SHOULD prevent this from happening as well as stop even more chassis flex. My plan was to get the barr and asses how much of a gap was there and trim some plate to go in there, weld it to the bar flange, then bolt in into the car that way.

The other item that may need to be addressed is I noticed there was a gap after tightening down the left side-this also puts the bolts under a huge amount of stress-it's good becuase it locks things down, but also stretches the hell out of the bolts-grade 8/10.9 bolts are pretty tough, so to beak these says something.

Just my thoughts-keep us posted on progress.

Sometimes it is hard to disect what someone says....I just want to clarify...
you are basically saying it is a bad thing that all the forces get transfered to the two stock 'flat nuts' that are part of the subframe? This basically adds up to less than 3 square inches of bearing surface on each side. Your solution would be adding (lets say 1/8") plate to the outter edge of the brace, so that forces get trasnfered to the flat edge of the frame, and not through the bolts. Thus, resulting in the bolts purpose more to keep the bar in place?

Coppertop and I have talked about this back when we were trying to think of how to design it. I think adding this plate is a good idea...we will see.

[Paulumbo]

Sometimes it is hard to disect what someone says....I just want to clarify...
you are basically saying it is a bad thing that all the forces get transfered to the two stock 'flat nuts' that are part of the subframe? This basically adds up to less than 3 square inches of bearing surface on each side. Your solution would be adding (lets say 1/8") plate to the outter edge of the brace, so that forces get trasnfered to the flat edge of the frame, and not through the bolts. Thus, resulting in the bolts purpose more to keep the bar in place?

Coppertop and I have talked about this back when we were trying to think of how to design it. I think adding this plate is a good idea...we will see.

That is EXACTLY what I'm saying. The bar should have as much surface area in contact with the frame as possible. Like I said...I'd been there done that-it was a concern I had, but the frame on the Delta cars is much more robust than the J-Bodies were.

[adrenalinerush04rl]

Well I think I found the problem with these bolts....

It looks like the 17mm head was threaded on and then welded to the rod persay. Well torquing them down made the heads basically collapse and then pop off. Also it seems that the lock nuts stripped the side that goes through the lca and attaches to the bar.

Im a little more angry now...the drivers side is all done...just need to add tranny fluid. Passenger side...took the bolts equipped with the bar out....tried putting the stock ones back in...one stock bolt snapped inside the frame and the other stripped a little bit...so we stopped. Now I need to drill out the bolt re tap it and thread chase the other hole so I can get the two new bolts Im going to buy from saturn so I can get this piece of shit car back on the road.

Thank god I bought the cherokee...gotta go pick that pos up so I have something to drive..


Ill try to have pics tomorrow.

[Periodic]

Dude...I dont have words for the luck you are having...

[Paulumbo]

I thought there were actual bolts supplied not threaded rod with nuts welded on......

[coppertop_01]

I have finally located proper bolts, and will be shipping them out to everybody

Whats going on man? I don't get the problems that you are having, did saturn change the thread pitch on the bolts or something? I checked all the bolts against the ones that I pulled out of my car, and everything checks out. Let me know what I can do to help you out

Paul, I've talked with acbronco about the gap, and I agree with you, future bars will be sent out with spacers to fill up any gap that might be there, ac had a small gap, periodic did not

Jer

[Periodic]

I know Jer had me try to track down some bolts, I couldn't find any. I don't think he could find any either. I know he tried the threaded rod on his car first and it was/has been fine since....which to me, would make it seem like they are suitable.

I have finally located proper bolts, and will be shipping them out to everybody

Whats going on man? I don't get the problems that you are having, did saturn change the thread pitch on the bolts or something? I checked all the bolts against the ones that I pulled out of my car, and everything checks out. Let me know what I can do to help you out

Paul, I've talked with acbronco about the gap, and I agree with you, future bars will be sent out with spacers to fill up any gap that might be there, ac had a small gap, periodic did not

Jer
Jer I think he is refering to the gap between the two bolts....If the flange is flat, and rest perfectly on the 'nuts' that are a part of the subframe, then there is a gap, approx 1/8" between the two 'nuts'...I'll draw something up in paint to show what I mean.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a387/redzed99/subframegap.jpg

If that "Gap" can be filled, then, under load, the bars would be bearing around the subframe, and not on the 'nuts'...more contact surface...

[adrenalinerush04rl]

Well from the looks of the bolts that were supplied...they look to be threaded rods with 17mm heads screwed on and then welded in place. Ill take good pictures tomorrow.

But in any case...I have to no get a set of bolts that are one size bigger that go all the way through like the ones with the bar with a nut on the end. Because theres no way Im gonna get that bolt out...it broke off in side. Im pretty screwed here and it sucks pretty bad. I just want my shit box back...better than driving this crap box jeep.

[Paulumbo]

I agree that making the flange of the bar sit ON the subframe rather than just the nuts would probably alleviate beaking bolts. With that much force going thru that small of an area it just screams to break.

[coppertop_01]

The breaking bolts isn't because of any gap, the nut popped off the top, after the threading in the frame, what you are talking about would cause the nylock nuts to pop off the bar side.

The head of the welded bolt probably popped off, because in the welding of it on the threaded rod, it melted some of the threads off the rod, after awhile the weld just couldn't hold it on anymore.

adrenalinerush04rl, what size bolt do you want, and I will locate it for you, what would be wrong with a M10x90mm, I will have those tomorrow, and rush them out to you. Even if you drill out the one that broke out, and use the M10's that I get, I can send you a tap as well...........drop me a pm and I will help with what I can to get this fixed.

Jer

[Paulumbo]

The breaking bolts isn't because of any gap what you are talking about would cause the nylock nuts to pop off the bar side.
Jer

Yeah....I know.....I've never had this happen nor have I ever seen this happen before......:indifferent:

I still want a bar-minus paint and "bolts".

[coppertop_01]

Bolts are in, will be mailing out a set to everybody, once they are installed and all problems are fixed, I will release the remaining of the bars, including yours paul...........

Hopefully everything is all worked out, thanks to the guys who did the beta test, now for the first actual production run

With the new kit, it will include

Bar
M10x90mm 1.5 pitch, 10.9 grade "BOLTS"
Nuts (either nylock, or ACbronco's crush nuts)
Shims/Spacers
Washers

For the same price that you guys were quoted.

Jer

[bc3tech]

:rofl: acbronco's crush nuts... bwahhahaaha.

[adrenalinerush04rl]

Well an update. The car is on the road....kinda hack but I cant afford a 600 dollar subframe right now so it will do. The bar isnt back on and I kinda have to think about if Im gonna put it on....maybe Ill save my pennys and buy me a new subframe for christmas.