View Full Version : Customized Lakewood Traction Bars


BigRedChvy383
04-13-2003, 12:50 PM
Well, I work at a trucking dispatch and we have like this steel that is rated at holding 50,000-100,000lbs coils, so me and a co-worker cut a few of them down to 5 1/2" because thats what the measurements call for to make clearance for the axle housing, then we mig welded them to the traction bars and spray painted them black because the chrome turned blue and black and so the steel wouldn't rust. The U-bolts that came with the kit work perfectly with the extenstion but drilling through that kind of steel took us like 2 hours at the most I think to make the brackets for the U-bolts and we mig welded those to the extenstions at a slight angle because the normal leaf spring mounts were at a slight angle. I'll try to get pics up to show what the finished product looks like, unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera at the time to show step by step proceedures of how to build them. Hope this get's stickied because its a really good upgrade sorta.

BigRedChvy383
05-21-2003, 01:21 PM
I finally got pic's of them, don't mind the rust, I'm going to sand and primer them, then paint and clear coat them so it will look alot better. Heres the link

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290108927&congratulation_page=Y

cxpcman
05-24-2003, 12:25 AM
hi BigRedChvy383 ... can you explain me how the traction bars work ..

BigRedChvy383
05-29-2003, 01:16 AM
The traction bars have bumpstops on the end of them, when the rearend twists, the traction bars will hit up against the leaf spring keeping the rearend from twisting that creates wheelhop.

HAYWIRE
03-14-2007, 05:46 PM
Looks good! In the pics looks like you have a big gap between the snubber and the spring eye. Should be no more than an inch, some guys will preload the suspension a little by having the bars adjusted into the spring a bit. Just my 2 cents.