Chassis braces

[John Clark]

Anyone know the weight of an aluminum chassis brace in ounces?

I don't really want to spend the $ on aluminum, seeing as they're just gonna get bashed to crap. During my last big clean, I noticed that one of the originals was cracked, so I made up some tin braces and pop-riveted them to the outside of plastic. This really seemed to add strength, and with the way I've been beating on it lately, I would think the old ones would be in a few pieces by now.

The reason for the ? on weight is, I've got some stainless steel that I'd like to use in place of the tin. It's stonger and looks much better, but it's also heavier. If there's not much difference in weight between aluminum though, I'm gonna use it.

Any suggestions/forseeable problems?

 

[SkyMaxx]

No matter the material you buy or use for chassis braces, expect them to get banged up. Price for doing offroad driving. If you have the machines to cut and machine stainless braces, go for it, but they will be heavier than the aluminum.

I can't quote you a weight in ounces, but I've had the same set of aluminum braces on my T for about 9 months with little to no damage. In my opinion, they were worth the money.

 

[NCNitro]

I agree with Sky completely. I bought the racers edge aluminum braces which have fairly large cutouts to lighten them up and have not had a single problem since. I also recomend getting them in silver, the scratches will be much less noticable than if you get colored ones. But the are a very worth while investment.

 

[Çh®i§tiªñ]

Anyone have a triple beam????

Ill weigh them up - need the scale.

 

[SkyMaxx]

All righty then, I took a spare set of aluminum chassis braces (I think they are Dynamite brand...at least they closely resemble Dynamite's) and weighed them. I also weighed the stock chassis (the plastic ones) braces. Here are the results.

These weighed in at just over 1 ounce per brace.

The stock weighed in at exactly .5 ounce per brace.

Hope that helps. I run the anodized blue aluminum at the moment; but were I to do it over again, I'd go the route that NCNitro mentioned. The natural aluminum or silvered hides dings much better than any thing with anodized color.

 

[RaCinJason399]

wow pritty pice of metal... well i think the stock braces are just fine why do people want to spend so much money on something that really costs like $1 to make or somethin close to that.?

 

[FLATTOP]

Two words for ya......"Eye Candy"

 

[SkyMaxx]

Two more words for you chassis strength. The metal gives more strength which in turn makes the chassis more rigid and less likely to flex under heavy loading (ie when you take big air or bash particularly hard). A strong spine for you truck makes it more survivable.

Just food for thought.

 

[John Clark]

Wicked man, thanx for taking the time to do that for me. I'm currently stripping the beast down for maintenance, so I'll weigh mine and post the results.

As for the strength issue, that's exactly what I was going for. The crack I noticed in the original brace happened around my fifth tank, although it was probably caused by my bro-in-law's close encounter with a big rock.

Here's a pic of the plate I made up for extra strength, that I want to replicate in stainless. If you look closely on the left brace, you can see the crack just where it starts to taper on top, going down to the first mounting hole. I care about as much for looks as I do for top speed. It only matters to me what I can get my Maxx through, under or over. Everything else is just butter.

 

[SkyMaxx]

No problem. I wish you luck in your pursuit of strength and speed.