What's wrong with this drop bracket?

Broke Joe · Feb 10, 2013

This is a 1996 Ranger purchased by my brother and left with me to be repaired. This is just one of the problems I have encountered. Is the driver side axle drop bracket supposed to be bent forward? Is the axle beam twisted or bent?

88_Eddie · Feb 10, 2013

did you replace the bushing? it looks new.

if not, the bushing is toast or the beam is bent.

it looks to me like you're supporting the vehicle up front. if that pass side suspension is just hanging there, you can usually move the axle around

Sasquatch_Ryda · Feb 10, 2013

If this is with the axle drooping the bushing will move like that

PanamaExpat · Feb 10, 2013

And just for the sake of stupid... god knows I qualify for that often enough. Verify that the bolt going through the bushing is the right diameter for the hole. Don't know what hillbilly worked on it before it got to you.

But as sasquatch said with no load on the axle they do fit kind of loose in the bracket. I thought about adding some washers to mine when I did it to tighten it up but once the chassis was back on the ground all went back to normal.

Broke Joe · Feb 10, 2013

The bolt is the correct size, the bushing is new and I jacked the truck up off of the front supports and then put a jackstand under the beam. This has the coil compressed as it would be with the wheels and tires on. You may be able to see in the picture a weld on the beam where it was cracked. This truck was beat up on, so maybe the beam is twisted or the drop bracket has been bent forward or maybe the coils are too tall. I have already taken out the two inch rubber spacer under the coils that were in it. If the coils were too long, I should have the same problem on the other drop bracket, but I don't. Thank you guys for the responses but maybe I need to find someone with a similar truck and take some measurements to see if something is bent or twisted.

locked ranger · Feb 10, 2013

does it have stock springs or lift springs? more pics of every thing would help, maybe the radius arm bracket needs lowering if its been lifted. did you get a pic of the driver side beam before you took it out?

4.0B2 · Feb 10, 2013

yeah, the radius arm needs dropped in the rear..
is what it looks like for me.

Broke Joe · Feb 11, 2013

It has lift springs in it that's 6 inches taller than stock. The radius arm drop brackets are 4 inches lower than stock. I didn't get a picture of the other side before I took it out but the lower half of the bushing wasn't wore down like this side was. I will upload more pictures soon. Thanks for the help.

Broke Joe · Feb 11, 2013

Here are more pictures. The yellow arrow in the first picture measures 10 inches. Maybe someone can tell me if that's what it's supposed to measure.

aspevacek · Feb 11, 2013

where is that bracket welded. It looks like the cast piece that was with my Skyjacker class 2. I have my JD stuff on my truck and my skyjacker one in the basement. Take a straight edge along the backside of that bracket to see how much if any it is tweaked. Hard to tell in the pic.

Looking at the 3rd pic it appears 4.0 is right on his thought there. That would totally explain that. Short arms with decent amounts of lift will put suspension in weird measurements. How was the caster on the truck? That would be a 100% sure fire way to see what is going.

locked ranger · Feb 11, 2013

The axle is still drooped some from where the jack stand is in the middle of the beam, not as much leverage as if the tire was on the ground, so that is causing some of the twist. also how tight is the pivot bolt, its should to be torqued between 120 to 150 ft lbs

Broke Joe · Feb 11, 2013

The bracket hasn't been welded but the beam had a small crack that I welded back together. I have no idea how the caster was, I drove it less than a 1/2 mile before I started working on it.

Broke Joe · Feb 11, 2013

I took "locked rangers" advice and moved the jackstand farther out, but it still looks wrong. So I took the coil loose at the top and jacked up the beam until the beam looked right in the drop bracket. Take a look at how much higher the coil spring is above the coil bucket in the last picture.

PanamaExpat · Feb 11, 2013

That's not just a factory pivot bracket that someone crammed extended springs on is it? Something don't look right there. I am beginning to wonder if it was set up correctly from the get go. Please get us a good picture of the pivot bracket.

locked ranger · Feb 11, 2013

is that brackets with 4" and 6" lift holes? if so i believe you have the pivot bolt in the 4" holes. Man, if you was closer id just ride over and give you a hand. lol some guys with lifts use the different holes to fine tune how the beams sit.

What's wrong with this drop bracket?

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