Sleeves and the like.....

250krawler

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2010
Location
Pageland, SC
If I have 2" OD steel square tube can i freeze it and and heat a piece of 2" ID diameter square tube and slide them over each other or is it still to close in size?
 
Doubtful because there's usually a weld seam on the inside of square tubing, but other than that I wouldn't see why it would work. What are you trying to accomplish?
 
If not for the seam in most hot rolled tubing, they should slide together without heat. It's possible you'd have to sand the mill scale off the OD of the small tube first but they should go. I've done this in the past with short pieces that I could die grind the seam out of.
 
What usually ends up happening is the 2" od tube gets a notch ground down the length to clear the weld seam. If you're talking about doing it for something like a hitch receiver then just buy hitch receiver tubing which has no weld seam.
 
Well the idea was too build a set of radius arms. They would have on inner tube which the frame and lower axle joint bolted too the a full length sleeve that I would build the the upper link bracket onto. Extreme overkill but that's the way I like stuff and there for a full size diesel p/u that will get wheeled. Was going to use 1/4" wall on both to give me a half inch wall total, i feel like that is enough to take a good hit on the lower arms with 1500+ lbs coming down on it.

So, die grinding the seam is out of the question but maybe as braxton said, prepping the inner tube to take the seam.
 
Yeah...you would be really hard pressed to actually bend 2.5" .25 wall square tubing short of running rockwells and 53's. I mean your rod ends probably at best are only 1.25" shank. But if you have the tube then go for it, why not. Groove the inner tube and put some plug welds down the whole length...then grab the floor jack to lift each radius arm into place :flipoff2:
 
Use the tube and do the bridging with the same tube. It will massive and be much stronger than even the two tubes slid over each other!

kinda like...

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Its the same way Ive made countless driveshafts that take a hell of a beating. Groove the inner tube and slide them together. I'm kinda with Braxton though they are gonna be heavy as hell. If overkill is your thing then I see it working JUST fine. IIRC though its tough to find weld in bungs for link ends that will fit that 2" OD .25 wall.
 
Barnes sells some they say are for 1.5" ID tube. 2" OD .25 wall would be 1.5" inner correct?

Use the tube and do the bridging with the same tube. It will massive and be much stronger than even the two tubes slid over each other!
Click to expand...
I possibly want a removable upper link so I can't do the truss/ladder looking ones you posted
 
You can get them easy. That's what I use in my 2-1/4 x 3/8 wall DOM lower links...
 
I have 2" .250 wall square for my rear links with regular round weld in adapters and they are fine. I plug welded them and burned them in around the top. Lowers are 34" and uppers ar 41" and no problems at all.

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