Good engineering can be a real double-edged sword sometimes. Everything is a compromise of some sort. Always in weight-conservation mode, I usually err on the wrong side of strength, designing truck parts. Real-world testing is really the only way to know if something works right and lasts long, so I tend to break alot of the stuff I make, in a seemingly never-ending development spiral. The Tourqelinks were obviously, no exception..
Clutch chatter suddenly returned one day after it caught traction spinning up onto the road during a bumpy mudhole turnaround. Inspection revealed catastrophic failure on both bars. Passenger side was bent and the driver side front mount was completely broken off. They must be doing something, because that was a 5/8 inch bolt. We’ll see how 3/4 grade 8 does. Weak links (literally) finally exposed. Getting those things drilled and tapped was a freakin’ nightmare.
I knew at the outset in this iteration, the bars themselves might be a weak point. They started as just light-duty electrical conduit. The angular force in this application is obviously not quite straight forward, so they got reinforcements welded in for a considerable beef-up. It’s also possible the mount breakage was bad welding on my part, so I left the other front mount alone, for the time being. They’re now sporting safety catches up front to keep them off the ground in case those mounts remain short on the strength values.
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