making dse swivel links

[chevelletiger]

made some for my 72chevelles upper rear arms,i used timken a4059 tapered bearings on a 1.375 shaft and turned shoulder down to .588 for taper bearings i.d. im now in the process of making the lowers,but im on the fence if i should make them with bronze bushings for the shaft as dse does with 1.250 o.d.x1.00 id.take a look@ patent genuis.com under kyle tuckers name youll see what im talking about.i will be using 1.5 dom for main tube,1.25 for rearward tube,2.250x.25 for rubber bushings.do you guys think the bronze bushing is stronger or should i stick with the 2 tapered single row tapered roller bearings,that are rated@2400lbs load?by the way i am not making these to sell to the mass,just for my own fun to challenge my fab and machining ,weling skills.phil

[oestek]

Holy smokes, that just made me appreciative the DSE Swivel Links even more.

[Bryce]

I did not know DSE had a pattent. That is awesome. Good for him.

[chevelletiger]

dse didnt come up with the idea.from what mark said@scand a couple off-road co. had that idea before,i think maybe they didnt get them patented.dse also uses gm vette aluminum end links for there a-body swaybar kit,and im trying to figure out what brackets there using for there quadra-link system the pics i saw in the projects section shows them on a table and they use an aluminum spacer for the lower arms that attach to said bracket that looks oem to my eyes.so...can any body give me any suggestions on which route i should go with the spindle bearing my idea or the bronze bushing?i have less that 45 bucks in matl.the bushing dse uses cost about 3.00! the taper bearings i have run about 23.00 ea.x per arm,but i got them free from my boss.there out of old 34 ford generators!there load rating is 3200+lbs. static,700+@90m rpm but the rearend wont be spinning that fast!anybody that has the use of a lathe,mill and cold saw,welder can make these,a little thinking is a you need to plan them out ill try and post pics of the uppers i made.when im all done making these if any member would like to make them there self i can share my drawing with them.thats what hot roddings about.phil

[Nothingface5384]

speed tech has something like the dse swivel link also..articulate arms or something like that...spohn has the same style anti-bind for their a/gbody bars too

[chevelletiger]

Got done boring and pressing sleeve into tube.I ended up using the bronze bushings 1.250x1.00 I.d. press fit of .003,the engineer@work said they where fine and can take the loads from autocross racing.

[chevelletiger]

Attachment 44901Attachment 44899heres some pics of the work ive done for my swivel arms,the third pic is a fly cutter with a carbide cutter set@ radius for 2.250 dia for the bushing tube,that goes in r8 collet 3/4 shank.it makes notching tubes better than a hole saw,also tthe max dia for endmill hss is 2.00 from what kbc tools said.bronze bushings in tube 2nd pic.going to start on spindle tue.

[Rhino]

Will these be used with a 3 or 4 link? I can understand the desire to emulate the swivel link, but it does beg the question of their real world effectiveness. In the limited articulation environments our cars are usually in, the bind encountered in the 4 link will be due the suspensions desire to change link length throughout it's travel. With that said, I would expect these to be equally as effective as a spherical rod end.
Are there any other reasons the swivel link is used rather than a rod end?

[BMR Tech]

Will these be used with a 3 or 4 link? I can understand the desire to emulate the swivel link, but it does beg the question of their real world effectiveness. In the limited articulation environments our cars are usually in, the bind encountered in the 4 link will be due the suspensions desire to change link length throughout it's travel. With that said, I would expect these to be equally as effective as a spherical rod end.
Are there any other reasons the swivel link is used rather than a rod end?

They provide the bind-free articulation while still providing a bushing style mount. Rod ends provide enough articulation for the environment however the solid mount transfers too much road noise for most. Other than this I see no other benefit.

[chevelletiger]

4 link and what brett said,lot less road noise,i made some uppers with 2.00 spherical bearing super strong but was told by mark@scandc it would be to harsh for the street.i will use the car for track to,but street also.i was thinking of doing a 3 link but...will see.

[formula]

longterm durability is a lot higher this way than with a rod end as well. They don't like rain, or dirt, or anything else that most normal roads subject a suspension to.

[chevelletiger]

more progress today.

[chevelletiger]

new pic of finished arm.phil

[gt1guy]

As was correctly stated above. The binding problems a 4 link has is from the links wanting to change LENGTH, not twist. Your fixing a problem that doesn't exist, and not addressing the problem that does. Making swivel links will never give you the bind free suspension your looking for. It can't. There is a reason why you always want to have a rubber bushing at one end of the links. The deflection of the rubber allows a change in length, to some degree. Rod ends at both ends of the links just make the problem (binding) worse.

If your car ran out of gas, would you rebuild the motor, or fill the tank?


Kevin

[Norm Peterson]

Rear control arm length only needs to change if the chassis center of rotation is forced to coincide with the geometric "roll center". These are two separate things, and in the case where compliant control arm bushings are in use, the chassis center of rotation will move in such a way as to generally minimize the forces developed in the bushings. In the case of most triangulated/converging 4-link arrangements, the rotation center would be expected to migrate upward a little, and the bushings would be expected to "give" a little.

You can't help getting twist along the control arms. Not when the chassis rolls in accordance with suspension roll stiffness plus tire flexibility, while the axle only rolls by whatever amount permitted by tire flexibility alone. At, say 4° apparent roll/g where the roll stiffness allows 3°/g and the tires 1°/g, the control arms still have to accommodate the entire 3°/g in some manner (compliant bushings, torsionally flexible arm section, spherical end connections, or swivel links such as these).


Norm

[68sixspeed]

As was correctly stated above. The binding problems a 4 link has is from the links wanting to change LENGTH, not twist.

regarding length bind, you are correct, I have what most would think is a drag style 4 link in my car but it was intentional as I knew I'd lose the back seat to a 3 link setup when I built the suspension etc in the 1994 timeframe (pre DSE, etc) and I couldn't package the torque arm w/o tunnel mods (now that's been figured out by others)- the solution was to run 'biscuit bars' for the upper links - they are common as the upper link on oval track car 3 links- they give a bit in extension and compression and are tunable using different hardness rubber bushings and how much preload you put on them. If you pull one upper link bolt on a 4 link car and move the rear end in roll you'll see why this is needed to have a bind free roll- the difference in ride height side to side makes the bars basically fight over what the pinion angle should be. With these bars I have 2.5" roll with no resistance and I can push it manually to 4" roll. (way more than is needed). The other good thing with these upper bars is that it takes some shock off the tires making it more forgiving getting on and off the throttle (their original intent in racing is to keep from breaking the tires loose on sudden gas/brake transitions) -Dan