[threpwood]

Originally Posted by JackG

Thought I'd save you some time. Here are my comments from that other thread regarding the rear strut brace you have:

"Overall the brace kit looks fairly well made, but the brackets that bolt to the struts seem a little wimpy. They are flat plates with welded-in studs for the spherical joints to bolt on. The joints fit over the threaded portion, then just wedges onto the unthreaded portion. It then sits about 1/2 - 3/4 inch above the plate, which seems to give the stud a chance to exert a good bit of force on the plate, possibly flexing or ultimately cracking/breaking the weld. Maybe not, but time will tell.

Second problem is that there were no instructions. You may think it painfully obvious how they are mounted, and that's true, but with a couple of exceptions. You would think that you'd simply mount and torque down the plates, then thread the spherical ends into the rod, then place on the studs, tighten their nuts, then twist the rod and tighten its lock nuts. Well, almost. The studs on the plates, when mounted and tightened down, are not pointed straight up. They are canted in toward each other and back at an angle, which causes the rod to have to be continuously adjusted while the ends are placed onto the studs. Except, that isn't possible either, because the clips on the rear panel that hold the top drive cables are in the way until the spherical ends are completely seated! You must mount one plate, put the rod and its ends in place and on the other plate, then adjust the rod while getting the second plate into position, then torque it down and complete the setup. It's a pain. If the studs were 1/2 an inch out further and pointed straight up when mounted, that would all go away.

Third problem is the biggest. Because of the studs being at such an odd angle, when the nuts are tightened down on those studs to hold the spherical ends in place, they put pressure on the free portion of the spherical ends that thread into the rod. This makes proper adjustment of the rod impossible, so you end up guessing if you have pressure applied outward, inward, or just neutral. You're guessing anyway, since there are no INSTRUCTIONS!"

Anyway, good luck with it. It can be made to work, just takes some fiddling around with.

Jack

Ok, I've been trying to install the rear brace for 2 straight days now and getting frustrated. The rear clips that hold the cables are on the way...are we supposed to remove this? I popped the rear panel from the clips, but were not sure how to remove the clips.

I tried to put the strut bar below the clips, but it forces the clips to bend up, possibly breaking it, so I stopped half way.

I also tried to force the strut bar on the top of the clips trying to push it down, but it didn't really work (couldn't put the hole to the second plate).

This is a lot harder than what I expected. Any help is much appreciated.