[SNWMBL]

Figured I would start a thread with some of the stuff I’m doing. Won’t be anything fancy and it is budget oriented. Working on the back half first. This week was trailing arm mount gussets.

Took the back half to work and spent 3 hours washing it until I had a spotless frame to start with.

The side plates are scrap 3/16 mild steel I had. I beveled the backsides quite a bit to get them to seat flush against the factory welds.

I fully welded the sides first. Took awhile moving around from side to side and letting them cool.

The top plates are made from scrap 1/8 chromoly plate I had.

Next project is plating the frame in front of the motor.

 

[RZR_Joe]

Nice job! You're gussets should be there in a few days.

 

[Oceanjake]

Wow I didn’t realize you did a full tear down. Can’t wait to see the progress.

 

[SNWMBL]

I tear it down pretty far at the end of each riding season to go through it. However this year when I dropped the skidplate I found a missing weld on the front half I hadn’t noticed before. Polaris sent a new front frame half under extended warranty. Since I had to go down to the frame anyway I decided to fix a bunch of stuff. After 2.5 years and 1,699 miles I had some visible damage to the frame from rock impacts.

 

[SNWMBL]

Nice job! You're gussets should be there in a few days.

Thankyou sir!

 

[RWB713]

Excited to see a thread on this! I'm anxious to follow along with the rebuild & upgrades. Looks great so far!

 

[Lastminute rex]

Looks like it will be a fun build! Subd


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[Max H]

@SNWMBL ... Hell of a tear down ...major commitment!!
I have been following your posts and questions for a while , and I really look forward to seeing more on your build

 

[SNWMBL]

I needed a less ghetto way to bend steel gussets so I made a break to use in my shop press. Built it out of scrap steel I had. I need to find a couple short stiff springs to help return it but otherwise it works great.

It got late tonight but I wanted to try it out quick. This is a piece of 10 gauge (.135) mild steel which it easily bent. I specifically built the break to bend the next gusset I’m making which I’ll post when it’s done.

 

[RZR_Joe]

Nothing wrong with a ghetto break. I built one very similar. You can find the springs on Amazon. Also converted my HR 20T press to air over pneumatic, that's a game changer.

 

[Lastminute rex]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Good work!


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[SNWMBL]

Necessity is the mother of invention. Good work!


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Yes it is, and with a wife and two young kids there’s a lot of it in my shop haha.

I found a couple springs at work that we’re obsolete and fit absolutely perfect. My break is 100% done now and I can bend up my gusset. The springs are stiff and it easily returns to full height after bending.

Fully compressed on 10 gauge.

 

[SNWMBL]

So this was the main reason for building the brake. I bought a 10 gauge remnant from the local steel shop and had them put a 1” bend on the long side(bend is facing down against the straight crossmember). That only cost me $47 total but I wanted to do the two outside bends myself so I could match the bends on the crossmember below the engine. The two 1.75” drain holes line up with the holes in my Trail Armor skid plate. I still need to sandblast it and weld it.

The narrower straight crossmember that my plate butts up against is bent slightly from hitting rocks which is why I wanted to plate that area to keep it from bending more.

 

[Blthndr]

You may want to reinforce down tube below rear sway bar mount to prevent crack as shown on my XP4. Sway bar brace since added until I get it welded. Close proximity to fuel tank.

 

[SNWMBL]

I’ve read about that. I use the IMS aux fuel tank which relocates the battery in front of the motor and has a heavy duty steel battery bracket that bolts to the swaybar mounts. It’s a very well constructed. Just as an added precaution though I bought a set of Rock Ready swaybar mount gussets that are sitting on the shelf waiting to go on, so my swaybar mounts will actually be braced in two different directions.

 

[Blthndr]

Sway bar mount will help take some of the tension stress out of this tube. Sounds like the aux fuel tank will help with lateral loads and stiffen the sway bar mounts to boot. I’ll end up fitting a split DOM tube that has 1.75” ID to decrease the stress in the tube. I’d like to see the FEA on the frame structure.

 

[SNWMBL]

FEA on the frame would be very interesting.

 

[Lastminute rex]

What is FEA?


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[SNWMBL]

FEA is Finite Element Analysis. I’m not an engineer so I won’t try to explain it but it’s a computer simulation of the chassis. It will show weak areas of the frame. Google will explain better than I can.

 

[Tim-ANC]

Your welds are beautiful