[Jeepin Jason]

Let me preface this by saying that as of right now (11/08), I've got no trail time at all with this setup, and very little street time, so the design as it stands may be changed if it looks like it'll need to be beefed up more.

This was also my first real welding project, so many of the welds look like poop but they should be strong enough. Also, many of the welds are multiple passes which is why some may look built up or extra boogery.

The complete build photo album is here: http://jeepin.net/fotos/installs/tractionbar

I got a lot of my ideas for the crossmember mount from Dirk @ DPG and Marty @ RLF from tractionbars they'd built for stretched TJs that had been converted to rear leaf springs. Due to torque jacking by the motor, the passenger side is really the side you want your traction bar to be on, but due to clearance issues with the exhaust on that side I opted to put my traction bar on the driver's side. I don't anticipate any issues from going this route.

Building the crossmember mount:

To combat binding at the crossmember mount, I decided on a dual flex joint design using large size Rubicon Express SuperFlex joints. One joint would be welded to my crossmember, the other joint would be on the end of the tractionbar, with a simple shackle connecting them. My DPG RockAttack belly skid is doubling as the crossmember mount for the traction bar.

1/4" plate to reinforce the rear edge of the belly pan.

Axle mounts:

I purchased these from DIY4x.com and was able to order them to my specs as far as bolt hole and axle tube size. They're 3/8" thick.

 

[Jeepin Jason]

Building the bar itself:

The lower part of the bar is 1-1/2" x 1/4" wall DOM tubing. The upper bar (red) is an old SkyJacker RockReady trackbar I had laying around. It is 1" x 1/4" wall and threaded for a 3/4-16 heim joint already, so I got a Boulder Bushing with a 3/4-16 stud on it from M.O.R.E. The lower bushing is a standard Boulder Bushing, also from M.O.R.E. The cross brace is a section of factory XJ tierod, haha. I tried to use existing 'scrap' material (I have a pile of scrap metal parts in the garage) as much as I could on this project to reduce the cost.

The completed project:

As you can see, the traction bar is pretty long, and the upper bar only goes about half way up. This leaves a long section of just the 1.5 x .25" tubing which is where my concern with bending lies. Total length is 45.5".

The shackle plates are actually for a trailer and I got them from Northern Tool for a few bucks. They are 1/4" thick and turned out to be exactly the size and bolt hole spacing I was planning on anyway so I saved some time by just buying them already made.

 

[Kyle]

Thanks for the writeup jason, keep us updated as to changes that may occur as a result of running the TB.

 

[Jeepin Jason]

Absolutely. I can tell already that it's pretty much taken care of my axle wrap issue, which was the whole point in me doing the project.

I think at a minimum I'd like to sleeve the front half of the bar with some 2" x 1/4" wall DOM to beef it up a bit. As much as I dislike the look of box tubing, I think if I was doing it over again now I'd build something more like this:

That's a production XJ traction bar (only one I know of) that a guy from my forum is building now. Actually, there's a good chance I'd have just bought his kit had it been available when I started this whole thing (which was quite a while ago).

 

[nighthawkxj]

that last setup is more like what i was going to build. I need one very bad. This is kinda my winter project.