Off road enthusiast use their trucks or rigs
on and off the road. As the Toyota Land Cruiser’s motto “No Roads Required”
they built their cruisers to do the extreme. As 4X4 enthusiasts continue to
build their rigs to do the extreme they tend to eliminate its factory
suspension parts to give way on the height and durability requirement of the
vehicle. It is not the height that really matters when doing mountain trails
and mud races it is how durable and tough is your suspensions. Putting a tough
suspension means putting not just quality parts on your car it must be lighter
also. To maximize the weight of the suspension they use tubes and reinforced it
to become tough.
The
stock factory control arms of your vehicles will be eliminated to give way to
new and improved designed tubular arms to give way for the suspension lift.
These will give the proper ground clearance to your rigs to boost its full
performance. Improved designed tubular arms are made from different materials
according to your needs. Some aftermarket tubular arms are made as bolt on
parts to your trucks including lift kits for DIY installation. There are three
different materials typically used in control arm or tubular arm construction
namely DOM or drawn-over-mandrel mild steel, aluminum and chromoly steel. Each
of these materials has its own advantages and disadvantages in application. Let
me give you a bird’s eye view on these three materials.
·
DOM
or drawn-over-mandrel mild steel
Dom steel is not actually a
type of tubing; instead DOM is a process by which steel tubing is constructed. Typically
DOM tubing is electrically welded and during the manufacturing process the
steel is drawn over a mandrel which cold works the material and gives it more
uniform dimensions relative to the inside and outside dimensions of the tube
itself. The weld line disappears during the cold working process and the tube
become seamless as its results. In tubular arm construction 1020 steel is
normally used which offers 87,000 psi of tensile strength and 72,000 yield
strength.
·
Aluminum
Tubes
Another material that is
used in tubular arm construction is aluminum. CNC-machine billet aluminum
offers high strength and extremely light weight, but is not typically used on
off road or in all-out drag applications as the material is not optimized for
higher horse power cars. Using aluminum in tubular arm constructions requires a
good engineering and design to ensure they will withstand the loads applied
without failing or breaking.
·
Chromoly
Steel
Chromoly steels are light
weight not as lightweight as aluminum but lighter than 1020 mild steel. It also has a high tensile strength of 97,200
psi along with 63,100 yield strength. It uses TIG process in tubular arm
constructions. Compare to mild steel, chromoly has more pound-for-pound
strength which permits a thinner wall thickness to be used to save weight and
still equal the same structure strength.
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