Another Rusty's Tracbar Failure... but not the normal one...

1st off left me get my disclaimer out of the way....

1) Yes I typically do not talk highly of Rusty's products; however I am in no way putting his company down or him personally down. I personally have not had great success with his products and have owned some that have failed. I also have not had the best customer service when it comes to replacing those failed parts and have been left out to hang. This may be an isolated issue as I know some that have had fantastic results and fantastic customer service experiences.

2) I am only posting this for the simple fact to put an awareness in those who are running Rusty's trackbars.

3) Once again I am not trying to talk bad about Rusty's as a company or him personally; I just want to re-iterate that fact.

I recently posted on GLXJ about the known Rusty's trackbar failure on the TRE end. The post talked about the known issue with the Rusty's tracbar and showed a result of what could happen if/when it does fail (totaled Jeep).

Here is a link to that thread. http://greatlakesxj.activeboard.com/ind ... D=17199270

Well if that thread isn't enough to make you want to go rip off your Rusty's trackbar...

I received a picture message last Wednesday night from a local friend who was also running the Rusty's trackbar. Here is the photo; I will let the photo speak for itself.

I do appologize for the quality of the photo. It was at night with a low quality camera on a phone.

Many are aware of the known issue with the TRE failure on the Rusty's product; but this is the first time I've seen it actually fail on the other end. I will note that Dan was not injured when it failed; luckly he was only going about 5mph when it broke. He's lucky it broke where it did; as he was about 2 mins from hitting the highway where he would of been traveling 60+ MPH. I will also note that he does not wheel his rig but only about 1 time a year tops and it's just VERY mild trail use. He drives it daily about 10 miles back and forth to work. So he's not abused it.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from here on....

Thats crazy... Thanks for the heads up... Glad he didn't get hurt.

I've seen pictures of rusty's control arms do that too...

His trackbar is really just all bad. I've seen the bracket fail too.

on another rustys trac bar note,

has anyone ever had the TRE that they send with the track bar snap off at the jamb nut?

this happened to my daughters XJ right after we lifted it. she was backing out of a parking spot in daytona beach and POW! rustys said when I called them " you left the jambnut loose" which I didnt the jamb nut was on the broken end of the TRE . They said they would send another TRE since it had only been 1 month old , I am still waiting 2 yrs later for it to arrive.

sorry for the rant

That's where they normally break. Threads are a great stress riser. The TRE is way to small for the application... Result, it cracks through the threads and breaks eventually. I think he might use cheap TREs too, but heck if I know...

XJ/MJ track bars are often really hokey because the aftermarket copies the basic design of the stock peice. Without changing the bracket at both ends and really thinking about clearances you can't fit large enough components in there to realistically not expect an eventual failure.

:nuts: See now Rusty's is for stock application or just strickley for the mall crawlers.

The faliure to my uneducated eyes looked like it could have been caused by the heat stress put where the bar meets the bushing end.Not a very common place for any trac bar to fail.

Wow, that was a nice looking TJ. I did put a rusty's tracbar on the XJ I had and I sold it with it on it. It was the most expensive part I put on that Jeep. I almost kicked myself for selling it with the Jeep. Not so much anymore... ;)

i had the rusty's hd track bar bracket that replaces the tre with a bushing, and i got massive DW after i installed it, i think the bracket flexed just enought to cause it to go crazy.

they use cheep @$$ HREW tubing on everything