I haven't taken mine down in a while but the last time I checked, the sleeve had left a definite groove around the bolt hole. If FT doesn't come out with different bushings and a thicker sleeve soon I'll fix it myself by drilling the bushings to accept a larger sleeve and find some thick-wall tube to substitute for the bolt sleeve.

IMO, either the bushing needs to be able to rotate on the sleeve or the arm eye needs to be able to rotate around the bushing. Their current design clamps everything down tight and if you don't grease the snot out of the whole thing it binds and pops when forced to move.

I just thought of another idea: place a thin fender washer between the two bushings. Just enough thickness to keep the shoulders of the bushings from locking down tight on the arm eye when you slap 125 ft/lbs of torque on the bolt. You wouldn't want a visible gap between the bushings and the eye, just enough of a shim between the bushings to ease some of the pressure on the eye and allow it to rotate. Or you could grind the width of the eye down a bit to accomplish the same thing.

Point is WE shouldn't have to FIX their sh!t

 

Hmmm, my ft bars does have a wide bushing face and yea when I tightened it down it was a little stiff to move up and down but didnt seem like much of a concern. Did ft change the design sometime? Im not sure what welds you are speaking of. Are you sure you recieved the right bars? Not much help.

 

Still waiting for a reply from Full Traction, In my initial e-mails they seem to think it's ok, the problem seems apparent to me I don't see why FT doesn,t see it. I'll wait for them to call and speak to them in person.

 

seems like odd issue, its the first time I've read about this problem with FT trackbars.

Mine are well over a year old with no issues. Good luck

 

I believe the teraflex issue was with the adjustable (axle) end, My concern with the FT is with the frame end, I wish someone with more info would chime in.

Wheelerbob

 

Piginajeep, Have you had your bars out since you installed them, you might want to check to see if the small sleeve is wearing into your frame bracket like on CJK's. See the more I read the more worried I become that this might happen to mine not to mention they bind and do not move freely at all. If I can't get a satisfactory answer from FT I'm taking the bars off with 0 miles on them, I haven't even driven on them yet. Just my luck I waited too long to install them so I can't send them back to Northride 4x4 without paying a %30 restock fee.

Wheelerbob

 

UPDATE111 UPDATE111 UPDATE111

I just got off the phone with the engineer @ FT that designed the track bars, They were extremely nice and after reviewing the pics I sent them they asked if I had the ability to precisly measure all the componants of the bushing, so I broke out the slide dial and it turns out it's just a QC error. It seems when they welded the eye to the tubing they didn't grind the weld down far enough so the bushing sits flat. They are sending me out a new set of track bars ASAP!! and want the old ones back for inspection so this won't happen again. I'm extremely happy with FT responce to this, you all know how hard it is to get good customer svc these days. And a special thanks to Dave @ Northridge 4X4, after seeing this thread he called me @ home ( i hadn't even called him about this yet )to see what the problem was, I'll tell you i've never had a company call me at home to help me get a problem solved. I can't say enough about Dave's and FT's cust svc. I'm definatley a very happy camper!!!

NORTHRIDGE4X4 ROCK'S
Wheelerbob

 

This Is just my opinion.
Guys I don’t want to nock FT and I do use there rear track bar and I like the way it has been fabricated. But I never liked the vectron bushings myself. So I took the bushing out and set the bar up in a milling machine and bored it out about another .0255 thousands for a press fit in the bar. So it will except an OEM track bar bushing which has more surface area on the sleeve. The hole in the bushing is right around 9/16 dia. (.5625 thousands) and the bolt from the factory is (.543 thousands) about (.020 slop ) I purposely put in a OEM bushing in for reducing popping and most of all to get lateral movement . When the axecle moves up or down the bar is forced out of its radius axis. I feel this is one of the reasons for the axel bracket breaking not to mention the welds.


OEM bushings I bought at JKS
Press fit needs to be .0015 to .002 thousands (class 2 press fit)
Machine time is around 1 ½ to 2 hours (depends on the shop you work with)

 

Thats a great idea, what bushing did you use, I looked on jks website and only found the stock bushings for the TJ track bars. Do you have the part#.


Wheelerbob

 

I dont understand how this is a great idea. I have been running the FT trackbars with the "vecton" for 4 years without one issue at all.

They use a very similiar design on the TJ. No problems at all. Why try and reinvent the wheel?