RE bearing?

[Ron_Burgandy]

Does anyone have any experience with these? http://www.polyperformance.com/shop/product.php?productid=23&cat=59&page=1 They seem alot cheaper then a uniball kit, but I wonder how well they would hold up.
Thanks

[matt_helton]

its a total rip off of the Currie Johnny Joint. same thing basically. i wouldnt use one in place of a uniball like connecting an a-arm to a spindle.

i run Johnny joints for all my a-arm pivots and love them. they take a pounding and have lasted along time with some EXTREME use.

i also have friends that run 3" johnny joints for radius arms pivots. also know a linked f-150 with 3" jounny jounts on all the links. they work great.
i like them becsuse they are rebuildable(bushings) and absorb shock unlike a heim which is basically a metal to metal joint.

[matt_helton]

and also, the joints i have on my a-arms are the 2.5" johnny joint. it uses a 9/16" bolt. that is the same as the "large re joint" the 3" Johnny joint uses a 3/4" bolt. and is much larger.

[dadunc205x]

do you just get them from rock crawler places? and im assuming the 2.5" is the OD of the cup.

[Ron_Burgandy]

I would assume so. Rubicon Express, I think, is just rock-crawling orientated.

[grantdcol]

Polyperformance is about 5 minutes from my house here in San Luis Obispo. I bought some rebuildable heim joints from them when I built my radius arms. They're called "Jimmy Joints" (sound familiar?) and they're made by Summit Machine which I believe also makes the joints your looking at. The ones I bought are just like a 1 1/4" heim, with a 3/4" bolt hole, but one side of the body is threaded in, and it uses a one piece bearing with 62 degrees of misalignment built into it. The races are replaceable, and it also includes a zirk fitting to push any sand or dirt out. Haven't had any problems yet.

Here's a coulpe pictures:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~cgrant/radius_arms/pivot_joint.jpg
http://www.calpoly.edu/~cgrant/radius_arms/jimmy_joint.jpg

Also, there's a lot more information on both types here: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=212233&highlight=jimmy+joint

[dadunc205x]

how strong are those rebiuldable rod ends? It doesnt seem that the rock crawler guys seem to care about the strength ratings, or at least i never see any load ratings. I dont want to sacrifice any dependability with rebuildability.

[ntsqd]

One thing I'd like to know is what people do with those load ratings. Do you know what the actual loads are, or do you just use them for comparison?

[grantdcol]

You're right in a lot of cases. That's why I went with the 1 1/4" to be on the safe side. It's a chromoly shank with cold rold body that are tig welded together and then normalized. According to Dave, owner of PolyPerformance, the manufacturer put them through a number of strength tests and found them to be stronger than 3 peice heims. One of which was trying to force the bearing out of threaded side of the body. For what it's worth, they found that the chromoly shank would bend before the weld failed or the bearing would come out. They use very fine threads, and the level of precision that I saw seemed to be very high.

If somebody's interested you can contact the president of summit machine for some specs,
Mike Judd:
Phone: Call Mike at (801) 576-8424
Fax: To attn: Mike at (801) 576-8425
E-mail: mike@summitmachine.com