Ladder bars....DONE!

[jguzman75]

I ordered these a few weeks back and when they arrived I was pretty excited to see how tough they looked. Well yesterday I went to put them on and when I didn't find any instructions I went online and found out that they are out of business Oh well I put them on but with some slight modifications. My buddy put together this set up which was much better than the original. Rides much better and with NO harsh ride due to the pivoting shackle design.

 

[CHPMustang]

Cool deal J! Get some pics when you can,I'd like to check out the final work

Just did the Radius Rods on our 02 a week or two ago,what a godsend!

 

[jguzman75]

Heres a look

 

[CHPMustang]

Nice hardware installed,quite heavy duty!

Going to make it to the Rally this weekend?

 

[jguzman75]

Cant, my wife and I are expecting our first child. Maybe next year i'll keep a look out.....

 

[CHPMustang]

Well congrats to you on the pending birth of ya'lls child

I look towards ya'll possibly making it in 2008,there'll be dozens upon dozens of photos available after this Rally

 

[platinum01]

Nice looking build. Bet the ride is better. Also congrat on the pending child.

 

[aklim]

What brand?

 

[jguzman75]

The bars were from annin engineering what we put together was the front mounting system. I ordered them about 2-3 weeks ago and when I emailed them to express my opinion of how strong they were built there was a message that they were out of business

 

[Wawuzat]

Rides much better and with NO harsh ride due to the pivoting shackle design.

With that pivoting shackle arrangement, those ladder bars are doing next to nothing for you. The purpose of the ladder bars is to keep the rear axle in a "controlled arc." With shackles at the forward ends like shown in the photos, there is no such control imparted upon the rear axle ... the shackles allow the ladder bars to move fore and aft.

My suggestion is to mount the forward ends of the bars directly to those end-plates, then weld another (smaller) drilled plate to the cross-tube. Doing that will place that forward-most bolt in a double-shear condition (MUCH stronger than single-shear). [EDIT - Oops! I went & looked at the pix again. They're already set up for a double-shear bolting arrangement. So all you really need to do is ditch those shackle plates.]

What I did like seeing was that the manufacturer positioned that forward mounting point below the frame rail. I've seen a few ladder bars bolted directly to the frame rails without even a sandwich plate to spread the load ... and they subsequently pulled holes through the frame rails.