traction/ladder bars

[tractoriden1]

does anyone have a source or recomendation for a simple yet good quality set of traction bars or ladder bars for a 00 3500 4by? i want to keep the hogshead from rolling so much on take off. thanks.

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Tractor,



The traction Bars Steve St. has are probably the best. Here is the thread. The older thread that has all the info won't work.



https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5177&highlight=Traction+Bars

 

[Archive]

Contact Steve St. Laurent... Moderator here. He came up with some, and I think they build after 10 people order. Search the board... there was a nice article on them, with pics!

 

[BLACKRAM]

SS Ladder bars are the way to go. I may be my own warranty station, but I am not my own R&D department. Steve had done all of the R&D for some time before I had mine installed.



This product will eliminate ALL axle wrap, and put the power to the ground.

 

[DAWG-1]

Rancho makes a set that bolts on also L&L and Fabritech.

Steve, I e-mailed you several times with no response. Is it working?

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Here's the existing threads on my ladder bar setup for your research:



https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5973&highlight=ladder

https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5918

https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6096&highlight=ladder

https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6009&highlight=ladder



For your info so you don't have to wait quite some time, there are 4 sets of long bed bars and 1 set of short bed bars still available. 9 sets of bars were shipped out last friday to end users. The road to market was a long and arduous one that was more work than I expected. I have no idea how long before Enterprise will place an order for another 10 sets (the minimum I can order from the manufacturer) - it will depend on the response. My hope (and theirs) is that there is enough interest that they can afford to order the next batch of 10 when they get down to 5 sets in stock - we'll see.



-Steve St. Laurent

Supplier of SS Ladder Bars

 

[Floor It]

I have not been able to find a picture of them, will their design present a problem of binding or extending when loaded. I deal with alot of chassis suspensions for street cars and ladder bars are bad about binding when turning on off camber driveways. I have found that 4- links work better for the street.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Floor it, there's pictures in the first thread I linked to above ( https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5973&highlight=ladder ). The answer to your question is no they do not bind the suspension at all. I off road my truck a lot and have the suspension crossed up often. They are mounted with heim joints at the front and rear and the angle of the bars were calculated such that they would allow the suspension to move freely. As the axle moves upward it also has to move to the rear because the leaf springs are attached solidly at the front and on a hanger in the rear. Therefore when the leaves compress they lengthen and that move the axle housing rearward and also rotates it slightly rearward. The angle and length of the bars is such that the axle will move backwards the proper amount as the suspension compresses. There is also enough articulation in the heim joints (there are spacers on either side of the heims allowing them to move fully on the ball) for the suspension to cross up WAY more than is physically possible. I made absolutely sure during the design of these that they would not bind articulation at all, that was my complaint with the existing ladder bar setups out there available for our trucks. After the install we even used a fork lift to lift each tire singly to cross the truck up as much as possible to make sure they didn't bind. Since that time I've been rock crawling in the Smokies and to the Silver Lake sand dunes with no problems at all.



Let me know if you can't see the pictures in that thread - if you are on a dialup connection you may have to wait a little bit for all the pictures to load, there's five of them on that thread. There's also a lot of discussion about the design of them and comparisons to other designs in those threads as well. This thread - https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6096&highlight=ladder - in particular has a lengthy post from me on ladder bar designs.



-Steve

 

[Floor It]

That is exactly what I had in mind for my truck! Great minds think alike. I had a little bit different front bracket in mind but it all works the same. What you show isn't a ladder bar it's more of a trac-locater bar system, but for are trucks it's the perfect system. We need more of a anti axel wrap system rather than a ladder bar lift the front end and plant the rear tires of a 7500lbs truck. It looks like a clean system, way to go!

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Thanks, Floorit! I couldn't decide on what to call them and ended up deciding on ladder bars as that seems the most accurate. When you say traction bars most people think of the snubber style bars - which are great for a drag car, but useless for us. I decided to call them ladder bars based on what Fabritech and L&L was calling theirs. With the geometry as they are set they do actually lift the truck (after carefully watching videos of my truck at the drags as well as the other prototypes the bed lifts close to a full 2 inches off of the axle when launching and also lift the front end some). The front mount is an off the shelf front spring perch mount from an F350 on the long beds, the SB trucks use an off the shelf mount that has to be cut slightly to fit - that was to save cost and also for future parts availability (in case someone cracks a mount or damages one in a collision - not likely but could happen), custom stamped parts are EXPENSIVE - WAY out of my price range! I hadn't planned on selling these bars until I saw the improvement that I did on the street (figuring not that many guys off-roads their Cummins TD's) and the response here on the board - just did them for myself. We'll see if the time I put into getting them to market pays off in the long run - I doubt it will though, but I love helping out my fellow Cummins drivers and that makes it worth it!! BTW, Do you have any better recommendations for a name?



-Steve

 

[Floor It]

How about traction links? I don't know, ladder bars works for me.

 

[tractoriden1]

folks, thanks for the help. i will be contacting steve. now maybe i am on the right track for keeping my hogshead from looking towards the sky with every take off.