A-ARM help

whoa nelly! The lowest priced bender on their site is $295. I had to think long and hard on spending $49 for a tubing notcher from harbor freight or spend $69 for a mail-order brand. Which, to me, was a huge decision. Maybe part of the reason why, at my age, I have no unsecured debt, a single car payment with 1 year left, and a mortgage with 10years left.

If I go all willy nilly buying tubing benders and such I'll be in the poor house in no time. Plus, did you see the bends I made with the conduit bender?
 
i did see it, just saying that'd be a ton easier on you if you're going to be turning out a few sets of them.


all the stuff that they sell is all professional grade stuff which is why its so spendy, you could find/build something for cheaper, there are plans out there to build a DIY hydraulic bender using an inexpensive bottle jack
 
It may be easier to use this 12 Ton Hydraulic Pipe Bender , instead of a conduit bender, to bend the a-arms... It comes with a 3/4" pipe die, and a 3/4" pipe is about 1 1/16" OD, so you may be able to bend 1" tube on it.... Its on sale at Harbor Freight for $99.99..
 
79 bronco said:
It may be easier to use this 12 Ton Hydraulic Pipe Bender , instead of a conduit bender, to bend the a-arms... It comes with a 3/4" pipe die, and a 3/4" pipe is about 1 1/16" OD, so you may be able to bend 1" tube on it.... Its on sale at Harbor Freight for $99.99..
Click to expand...

i can tell u right now it kinks tubing very easily . had one and used it once got pissed and gave it away and bought a mittler bros air over hydraulic lol
 
1bad442 said:
i can tell u right now it kinks tubing very easily . had one and used it once got pissed and gave it away and bought a mittler bros air over hydraulic lol
Click to expand...

damnit!!! hahaa... what kind of material were you bending in it?
 
1bad442 said:
i can tell u right now it kinks tubing very easily . had one and used it once got pissed and gave it away and bought a mittler bros air over hydraulic lol
Click to expand...

It dont look like you have to put a lot of a bend on the tube for the a-arms, so you may not get a kink in it...
I have a old HOSSFELD bender at work but we dont have the right dies... The company next to my work that rents off us have a hydraulic bender for making hand rails but they dont have the right dies either, and the dies are very $$$$$...So i was thinking it is cheaper to get the 12 Ton Hydraulic Pipe Bender
 
I've looked at one like that before and someone else said it kinked the tubing on the ends where the movable pieces are. I think it'll work as long as pretty isn't an absolute necessity.

I got some work done tonight on my set... I figured out the welder, I figured out the tubing, I figured out the jib. The second lower arm is so much better than the first it's almost embarrassing except that the first was the guinea pig so it's understandable.

I have figured out the shock mounting point and have it marked and am working out the ears to for the lower mount but the HF tubing notcher has too much space between the clamp to cut a notched tubing short enough for the pivot point I need. I'm going to add support in the middle of the clamp so I can cut the short length I need.

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Tater, I think that the HF bender could be modified as long as you are going to use primarily one size tubing. The movable die halves need to be extended so that they meet in the middle and are sitting completely on the side of the tubing at 180 degrees of bend.

Also, kinking can be overcome as long as speed isn't a huge issue either. You can take the tubing and shove a stopper in the length of tubing you need to bend with it already marked and ready and then fill the tubing with play sand. Sure it's going to be heavy to heave up into the bender and you've got to empty the sand back out after you're done with the bend but the sand will act like a mandrel and allow the smoothest bends possible without a mandrel bending machine.
 
hey civic have u thought of using some tubing for the ball joint mounts like the snyder motorsports arms? it seems it would make for a cleaner look (not that yours dont), also it would open up some more options for people buying them if you ever started selling them. you can replace the upper blaster ball joint and replace it with a yfz upper ball joint and you could run the whole yfz brake setup, spindles and all with just swapping ball joints. just a thought. u can see in this pic what im talking about. good job on the arms tho!!!

1z49ueu.jpg
 
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sicivicdude said:
Tater, I think that the HF bender could be modified as long as you are going to use primarily one size tubing. The movable die halves need to be extended so that they meet in the middle and are sitting completely on the side of the tubing at 180 degrees of bend.

Also, kinking can be overcome as long as speed isn't a huge issue either. You can take the tubing and shove a stopper in the length of tubing you need to bend with it already marked and ready and then fill the tubing with play sand. Sure it's going to be heavy to heave up into the bender and you've got to empty the sand back out after you're done with the bend but the sand will act like a mandrel and allow the smoothest bends possible without a mandrel bending machine.
Click to expand...

yeah i think it will be ok.. im not going to be putting anywhere near a 90 degree bend in anything.. nice tip about the sand. i dont know if i have ever heard that.. looking good man!
 
yup the sand is the po' man's mandrel lol.



good job on the arms, can't wait for a full ride report
 
sicivicdude said:
I've looked at one like that before and someone else said it kinked the tubing on the ends where the movable pieces are. I think it'll work as long as pretty isn't an absolute necessity.

I got some work done tonight on my set... I figured out the welder, I figured out the tubing, I figured out the jib. The second lower arm is so much better than the first it's almost embarrassing except that the first was the guinea pig so it's understandable.

I have figured out the shock mounting point and have it marked and am working out the ears to for the lower mount but the HF tubing notcher has too much space between the clamp to cut a notched tubing short enough for the pivot point I need. I'm going to add support in the middle of the clamp so I can cut the short length I need.

SANY0036-4.jpg


SANY0037-4.jpg


SANY0038.jpg


SANY0039-1.jpg


SANY0040.jpg


SANY0046.jpg


SANY0044.jpg


SANY0047.jpg
Click to expand...


are u using mild steel or cro moly???
 
I ordered 4130 tubing to the tune of $110 to do this.

I'm also going to re-normalize and knock any burrs (and that one splatter ball off the lower) off them before I paint or PC the set so these should be hard as rocks.

3 wheeler, I chose the ring mount upper ball joint because of the pinch bolt yamaha decided on for the upper ball joint style. I know there are probably some options in the "pipe mount" for the pinch bolt but I'm not sure what they are. I had experience with the upper ball joint I used because of some emergency ball joint repair work I have done on two other 4 wheelers and figured I could make that joint work (on the cheap too replacement All Balls joints are $15) with minimal bending.

I just put my norman 420 spindles on my quad so I'll be sticking with blaster spindles. I could probably modify the jig to run the "pipe mount" for the uppers but I would also have to figure out what ball joint to run to get the pinch bolt.

If someone would want the "pipe mount" specifically I could do the work to figure it out.

Also, I used a pair of 16mm nuts welded together for the lower ball joint mount. That's just for this set. I have found 16mm x 1.50 threaded collars. If/when I make more, I'll be using the threaded collars so instead of having the hex shape sticking out of the lower a-arm, it'll be round so it'll look even more like the snyders.
 
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