Aluminum drag link

Noel

Noel

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2010
Location
Sophia NC
Wanted to see others opinions. Brand new aluminum 7075 t6 drag link, first trip out. Basically first trail of the day. Took a good bump to the front. Didn’t think anything of it. Get out of the jeep and bam it’s bent to shit, twice as bad as the old dom one. No rebound or memory. I know it’s possible to bend these and links but just seems this is out of character for the material. From a local vendor we all use….. so I’m gonna see what they say. Pic doesn’t show how bad it really is. My aluminum links I installed at the same time held up to plenty of abuse on the trails.
 

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I have never been sold on the aluminum steering links. Is it possible that your ram bent it, or helped bend it?
 
I have not bent my aluminum tie rod yet. I abuse the crap out of it as I'm running it not flipped on a JK. The DOM one lasted about 3 months.

I'm surprised to see that one bend permanently.
 
gslander said:
I have never been sold on the aluminum steering links. Is it possible that your ram bent it, or helped bend it?
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Nah definitely a smack to it… much less than the links took the rest of the time though.
cranbiz said:
I have not bent my aluminum tie rod yet. I abuse the crap out of it as I'm running it not flipped on a JK. The DOM one lasted about 3 months.

I'm surprised to see that one bend permanently.
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First hit and boom! It is also kinda out there to be hit, but figured it would take some abuse. My dom didn’t last either. But would have been cheaper to go back steel again
 
braxton357 said:
Aluminum has a plastic deformation limit just like everything else, push it far enough and it's not going to come back.
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I've never understood these "magic" aluminum links that "spring back". But I also am not well versed in the science of metals.
 
jeepinmatt said:
I've never understood these "magic" aluminum links that "spring back". But I also am not well versed in the science of metals.
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Agreed but have watched many buggies run them. Can watch the vehicle land one them, horseshoe and spring right back
 
I ran a solid tie rod on my buggy with no issues, think it was 1.25. That was with Ried knuckles & C’s, might be leery of doing that with factory stuff for obvious reasons.
 
braxton357 said:
Aluminum has a plastic deformation limit just like everything else, push it far enough and it's not going to come back.
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Looks at Derek :dumbass:

The old 2-1/4" link compared to the new 2.5"

IMG-20231015-WA0003.jpg
 
Sent another email, hasn’t been replied to. Guess it’s back to square one and probably going dual ended ram. Ultimately I believe the aluminum wasn’t what it was supposed to be. Barnes must have gotten a bad batch. I will say they tried to replace it but doesn’t matter when it’s the same material. Has anyone used their sd60 dual ram mount?
 
Well crap, customer service guys must have dropped the ball on this one. I apologize for that. I pulled 3 random samples off from the shelf and sent them to an independent lab to verify they were 7075 T-6 and they came back good. I'm at the beach till next week, if you want to PM me your email I will send you a copy of the test results when I get back to work. Sorry I'm not sure why they wouldn't have got back to you.
 
Pless said:
Well crap, customer service guys must have dropped the ball on this one. I apologize for that. I pulled 3 random samples off from the shelf and sent them to an independent lab to verify they were 7075 T-6 and they came back good. I'm at the beach till next week, if you want to PM me your email I will send you a copy of the test results when I get back to work. Sorry I'm not sure why they wouldn't have got back to you.
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How did my returned one test?
 
Noel said:
How did my returned one test?
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We put a hold on selling them after your issue. I waited a few weeks for your tierod to come back, but it didn't show up in that time frame so I had to send samples off from the shelf so we could figure out if we needed to scrap what we had or if we could continue selling them. I don't remember the exact time line, but it was several weeks before we got the bent one back, so I wasn't able to test it.
 
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