Cracked Chassis Rails

[ssdsibes]

Some of you might remember that my Iron Man bullbar was flexing and hitting the guards on bumpy roads and I had it looked at Geraldton and the fella said the bolts are tight and there is no way the bar is going to come off.
Heading out then to Karijini on the dirt roads the bar was still flexing heaps, so when i arrived in Broome, I had the Iron Man dealer have a look at it.
As I showed him the movement of the bar, he noticed that the chassis rails are both cracked where the winch cradle mounts to.
I have attached some pics of the right hand side only.





So now we know why my bar is flexing a bit.... actually it's about to fall off!!!

Sam & Ang in Broome

[Glenn k]

lucky you found it now mate, that would do some major damage if it was to come off on the road!!!!!!
hope you get it all sorted asap and doesnt interfere with the trip to much
hope you are still having a good time
Glenn

[Steve9R]

hmm thats not good mate.. We've all heard of the nissan chassis cracking issues.. but i honestly havent heard of a hilux with this problem until now.. I think you're the first with this problem on here..

Once you get it welded up you'll be good to go anyway... could have been a lot worse !..

Cheers
Steve

[pootrol]

theres is a lot of weight when u have whinch and bar hanging out the front of your chassis rails. then you have sharp jolts , corugations etc it doesnt suprise me at all. thats alot of strength the rail need. instead of head butting id say find a way to tuffen up the mount with some extra steel........

it does do ya good to have a yell at someone thou.

[ssdsibes]

Could have been stuck in a worse place than Broome, sitting on Cable Beach drinking beer right now. Will be welded tomorrow without the bar being taken off, and when I get back I will take bar off and have it fully welded up.

But lucky tofind this as if I was winching, it would have been seeya later bullbar.

Sam

[oldrev]

sam hi
when i saw your your pics i went straight out and inspected my truck which has a arb bar.
from your pics i would suggest that maybe the ironman bar is not braced to the same standard as is the arb bar.
my bar has a seperate support brace bolted with the two bolts in your photo extending rearward helping to support the top end of the chassis rail.
In my opinion you should be following up with ironman when you return.
good luck with the rest of your trip
ken

[Rich]

Has anyone with an ARB Bar had this problem of the chassis cracks?
It is a little concerning !!!

Rich.

[pootrol]

id pay money to see that. imagine some dude on the side of a hill winching happily to the top then all of a sudden bang, truck slides to its doom and the bull bar sits on the side of a hill..nearly as funny as the mattress i seen on the side of the road the other day..........it still had the roof racks attatched to it

[ssdsibes]

Welded up today with an additional gusset put in so it shouldn't fall off now. Going to test it on the Gibb River road tomorrow.



Sam

[Skog07]

Lucky you found it Sam.
You and Ang have a great and safe trip.
Cheers
Mark

[VMN]

Sam, that bar of yours is the earlier Ironman design. If you jump up and down enough, they might replace it with their new design. New one has better mounting system and high lift jack mounting points.

Not sure if that would have helped though as you wouldn't be the first guy to crack a chassis on all those dirt roads....

I would be telling them that it was the opinion of the reparier that the flex in the airbag concertina mount section caused the bar to wobble up and donw on the chassis end and eventually caused the chassis to break.

[Hilux Max]

I think your onto something there Rod.....

I think the fact that Bullbars are mounted on the end of the chassis rail plus including the extra concertina style crush tube mounts the likes of ARB bars have makes them hang out very far forwards.....

this extra distance adds like a cantilever and Im not that engineering qualified so bear with me here....

At the end of the chassis rail, the bar may weigh for example 50kgs.....add another 20-25cm or whatever these crush tube mounts are would increase the weight at the end to the equivalent of 60-65kgs.....Im not sure exactly, maybe theres an engineer here that can help? I knew the formulas back in 1st year uni......

What I think many bullbar manufacturers would and should take note of is the mounting system of the Xrox bar?

Now Im not getting into a like it or not topic here, the bars design is irrelevant in my arguement.

The xrox bar mounts to the sides of the chassis railand the mounts themselves do not potrude past the end of the chassis rail....being lighter than an ARB or Ironman bar would help, but its the mount design that I think would be of most benefit here.

Even if they kept the same style of ARB/Ironman bar but changed the mounting system, they would be able to pull the bars closer inwards and reduce the amount of stress the chassis takes.

heres a pic below of the mount -

[VMN]

Max, I was not thinking it was the lever effect but more that the early Ironman mount was quite "wobbly" so it bounced around a lot more so the chassis mount was being flexed a lot more with a winch hanging out there..

[dirtyharry]

I know a bloke who develops extras and accessories for toyota, They've had some problems with heavier bull bars cracking chassis and has been linked to weight of the bar and corrugated roads. I mentioned to him i wanted to fit a bull bar and he recommended to buy a toyota bar as they will warrant a cracked chassis but won't if there is a aftermarket bar fitted. Another point he made was that some driving lights can be a bit heavy and when hanging so far out from the chassis on a bullbar, they can be the straw that that breaks the camels back, particularly on corrugated roads. Toyota are currently redeveloping their alloy bar, for what reasons he didn't say and i don't know what plans they might have for the enourmous steel bullbar but surely it can't be any heavier than the aftermarket ones....

[gruntre69]

I notice my ARB bar moving around quite a bit (in relation to the bonnet). It has been discussed on another thread that it is the Cab moving on the flexable mounts but I'm still no quite so sure of this. It would be very interesting to mount a couple of video cameras to the chassis and see what is going on.

[Hilux Max]

really sorry to be offtopic but I only released....gruntre69....you got a bigger pic of your avatar?

[gruntre69]

Yep I know My Hilux is a sweet looking ride isn't it....

It's been a popular request...... I'll get to it soon, keep an eye on my build thread....

[ssdsibes]

Hi

Back into internet world in Kununurra after 5 days on the Gibb.

Well the welds are holding up but the bar is still hitting the guards on bad corrugations but I think by lowering it, this will be enough to fix it. Mind you the Gibb is in very good condition at the moment.

Will post a picture of the weld repair later,


Sam

[Skog07]

Hi

Back into internet world in Kununurra after 5 days on the Gibb.

Sam

Show off.....

Wait till you get lost in the Simmo...
Have fun mate.

Cheers
Mark

[ssdsibes]

Hi

Back into internet world in Kununurra after 5 days on the Gibb.

Sam

Show off.....

Wait till you get lost in the Simmo...
Have fun mate.

Cheers
Mark

I don't think I will catch up with Warren & Dave as they will be too early for us as we are now going down to the Bungles and then Lake Argyle then Darwin etc. Was looking forward to do the Simpson but this will have to be another trip.

Sam