Matt16

How much of a hit can they take. My impression is that cast aluminium doesn't take hits well at all. I assume I can rest the weight of the truck on the tranny/ T case if I were high centered (and hypothetically the crossmember wasn't directly taking any weight).

Anyone cracked the T case or tranny on a rock?

leebee

yes, i have a custom made crossmember that took some very heavy hits and it shifted enough to impact the tcase resulting in a significant crack. the first time, i was able to repair the crack with jb weld, it worked perfectly. until i went wheeling again!

sort of forgot about it until i hit even harder than the first time, knew right away what was next on my to do list. good thing about it, the orginal repair held up and the new crack is up higher so the fluid loss is minimal. i check the level once a week and top up as necessary.

i have a spare trans that i can tear apart for the tcase shell, its just getting motivated enough to tackle it. your factory crossmember is stout enough for most wheeling. when i replaced mine with the custom one, the guy that made it was pretty surprised at the amount of damage i had done to it. i have a spare factory xmember that i will probably change out when i do the tcase shell.

the only drawback to the custom one was, not enough clearance around the tcase. otherwise, it worked like it was designed.

lee

tc

Well, do you REALLY want to find out? Gonna be hard to get home with no oil in the tranny/tcase.

www.budbuilt.com and don't ever have to worry about it