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Aluminum or not?

av8or

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I’d love to get some opinions from those with more experience than me. I recently posted that my drag link and tie rod are shot, so I started researching what to get. Now my head is spinning and I’m not sure what I want to do.
For sure my #1 goal is to get good quality and durable parts, but a very close #2 goal is to make sure that everything now and in the future will play nice together.
Is there any reason that makes aluminum a bad choice?
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Some Random Guy

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Strength isn’t the full story. Keep in mind every pound you add to steering or rotational weight puts significantly larger strain on the systems than adding a similar amount of weight in the cargo area. The key is to look at everything, if you have lots of properly selected (lighter) parts you reduce the strain on those parts and can use aluminum or smaller parts. If you go for the strongest everything you’ll just start tearing through ball joints and other joints and throw in the towel for ud60 axles just to run 37’s.
 

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I’d love to get some opinions from those with more experience than me. I recently posted that my drag link and tie rod are shot, so I started researching what to get. Now my head is spinning and I’m not sure what I want to do.
For sure my #1 goal is to get good quality and durable parts, but a very close #2 goal is to make sure that everything now and in the future will play nice together.
Is there any reason that makes aluminum a bad choice?
I’m not a fan of aluminum on a Jeep, especially when it comes to steering and suspension. In fact I’ve changed out my aluminum knuckles as a preventative measure. Already saw a guy on here found his wollowed out when he changed his ball joints.

I can tell you that synergy tie rod and steersmarts drag link play very nicely together, and has been great so far. I ended up with the mismatch because of the deal I got on them. As it turns out it works pretty good. I’m not worried about weight, as I have planned for it, meaning, Reid racing knuckles, dynatrac ball joints, RCV axle shafts, etc..........✌
 
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Creeker

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Have a SteerSmart System on the JLR. Very nice stuff.

Jeep Wrangler JL Aluminum or not? Diff Cover Front


Jeep Wrangler JL Aluminum or not? IMG_9757 (1)
 
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Terminex

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I would suggest staying away from Synergy.

i just finished returning my 19 JL to stock in prep for trading it in on my 21.
when i removed the synergy drag link i found that the end was rusted inside so badly that it was frozen. Had to use a LOT of heat to get it to break free. (Yes i had used anti-sieze prior to install)

once i got the end link off you could see that the interior was all rusted.

interesting thing is that i installed a teraflex drag link at the same time. When i removed that, it was perfect, no rust and the end links were great.

i only went with the synergy for the option todo high steer, but i never did the flip.

i am going to go with someone else on my new JL.

just wanted to share my experience.

forgot to mention that this was a garage queen, about 8000 miles over 18 months on the drag link & tie rod.
 

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av8or

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Thanks for all the replies. I’m thinking a metalcloak lift is in my near future, so I might as well get the tie rod and draglink from them too. It’s seems to be a lift that’s considered top tier so it shouldn’t get too many opposing arguments.

I’ll be back with plenty of questions..
 

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as with any mod it really depends on you plan on doing with the jeep. The drag link and tie rod are both just made up of rod ends and a rod (shocker) and they come on a variety configuration depending on the manufacturer

rod ends tend to be stock replacements, 1 ton, 2.5 ton, or hemis, the stock ends are good for around town driving with up to 35s i would say, the 1 tons are good for 35/37s with moderate off road, 2.5 probably looking at 40s and heavy off road but their price jump is large, heims you are looking a dedicated trail rig. their failure is more with wear over time so a good alignment will help extend their life

the rods themselves are what is more likely to fail in a way that you are going home on a trailer, when they fail most likely are bent. The bigger in diameter and thicker the tube wall the stronger they will be and better at resisting bending. Steel is much stronger than aluminum so you do not need as large as a rob with steel to get the job done and have cheep material costs but when it bends it retains its stays bent, where as aluminum likes to retain its shape so when you clear the rock bending your rod it will bend back into a straight rob, though the big draw back with aluminum is to get the same strength performance as steel you need a much larger rod which can cause interference issues with the axle

the last bit to also think about is the how the adjustment works, typically its either a clamp style which can introduce a weak spot in the rod or it is a jam nut style which can loosen up over time
 
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av8or

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as with any mod it really depends on you plan on doing with the jeep. The drag link and tie rod are both just made up of rod ends and a rod (shocker) and they come on a variety configuration depending on the manufacturer

rod ends tend to be stock replacements, 1 ton, 2.5 ton, or hemis, the stock ends are good for around town driving with up to 35s i would say, the 1 tons are good for 35/37s with moderate off road, 2.5 probably looking at 40s and heavy off road but their price jump is large, heims you are looking a dedicated trail rig. their failure is more with wear over time so a good alignment will help extend their life

the rods themselves are what is more likely to fail in a way that you are going home on a trailer, when they fail most likely are bent. The bigger in diameter and thicker the tube wall the stronger they will be and better at resisting bending. Steel is much stronger than aluminum so you do not need as large as a rob with steel to get the job done and have cheep material costs but when it bends it retains its stays bent, where as aluminum likes to retain its shape so when you clear the rock bending your rod it will bend back into a straight rob, though the big draw back with aluminum is to get the same strength performance as steel you need a much larger rod which can cause interference issues with the axle

the last bit to also think about is the how the adjustment works, typically its either a clamp style which can introduce a weak spot in the rod or it is a jam nut style which can loosen up over time
Thanks, I think I’m harder on this rig than I intended. In 18 months it’s got 33k been to Moab 3 times, the rubicon once, 4 Jeep jamborees, 12 badge of honor trails, and hundreds if not thousands of miles off-road in the desert of eastern oregon and northern Nevada. I see now that the stock stuff including the mopar lift aren’t going to hold up to more of the same, which is what I have planned. Doing the rubicon again in a few weeks and another jamboree in Colorado.
 
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av8or

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Haha, in your first post you said,"I’d love to get some opinions from those with more experience than me." Sounds like you have more experience than many LOL.

Not really. I’ve been a professional driver my whole life, even drove competitively for a few years, but this is my first personal build and I’m terribly inexperienced in that area.
 

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I've had the full Steersmarts setup for about 40k miles now. It's held up great, but I'm about to upgrade a bunch of front axle parts, and am also switching over to the 2.5 ton 2" diameter solid aluminum tie rod and drag link from RPM Performance.

With the 3.5" Metalcloak Gamechanger, it's required a lot of testing to find the right spot to aim the adjuster clamp hardware to not hit anything. The tremendous amount of flex from this lift has led to rubs and hits to everything in their vicinity. The only spot that is out of the way of the tie rod clamping bolts, is having them aimed straight down. Not a great thing to be the 1st point of contact. The aluminum linkages utilize the jamb nut method of locking in the adjustment, so even though the bars are 2" vs Steersmarts 1-5/8", they are still overall lower profile by not having the clamps and hardware protrusions.
 

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I installed the ARTEC drag link and tie rod . Fit the rubicon Dana 44 and also bolted on my Dana 60 swap .. have bashed them into many boulders and they are straight, unlike my MetalCloak lower control arms 😂😂
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