ok, i have missed a lot of conversation. i don't have the time to go through it all, so if i miss some points, please don't crucify me.
its not a cantilever because of the arm going back to the trans...which makes it triangulated. yes, that mount retains its flexible bushing, but testing showed there was no significant improvement in going solid. and, as pointed out, the removal and replacement about triples the install time. i went and looked at the bolts and i was mistaken and going off memory. i got more than that wrong from my memory. the M12 10.9 THREAD is 50kN...woops! an M12 8.8 bolt is 57kN on the shank. bolts are not going to shear. the lower bracket is WAAAYYY over built with dual gussets and using 1/4" thick steel. at that point, the upper mount arm bushing could be made of bubble gum without deflection! i am tempted to come up with a rig to hold a spare trans (i just happened to have picked one up over the weekend!), put the bracket assembly on and rock crawl my expedition over the end of the bracket. not really though, because then all the "lightweight" people come out saying its unnecessarily heavy. well, they can pound sand cuz if their front ujoint fails, this herculian bracket is going to spare them from pole vaulting their car!
by the way, aside from vibrational force and whatever you can muster up to hate your shifter, there isn't near enough to make this thing fail, fatigue or even breath heavy.
oh, and when comparing this to the XL, the emphasis shouldn't be placed on the arm bushing, its the bizarre linkage that makes the real difference. there are 3 rubber bushings between what your hand wants to do and what the shift forks actually do.
i may come off too sensitive about my design. its not intentional. i appreciate all the feedback and questions. if there's something i've missed, its an opportunity to fix it. if there's question and i get to prove my engineering capability in a thorough design, thats validation i am doing things right. question everything! don't drink the koolaid!
its not a cantilever because of the arm going back to the trans...which makes it triangulated. yes, that mount retains its flexible bushing, but testing showed there was no significant improvement in going solid. and, as pointed out, the removal and replacement about triples the install time. i went and looked at the bolts and i was mistaken and going off memory. i got more than that wrong from my memory. the M12 10.9 THREAD is 50kN...woops! an M12 8.8 bolt is 57kN on the shank. bolts are not going to shear. the lower bracket is WAAAYYY over built with dual gussets and using 1/4" thick steel. at that point, the upper mount arm bushing could be made of bubble gum without deflection! i am tempted to come up with a rig to hold a spare trans (i just happened to have picked one up over the weekend!), put the bracket assembly on and rock crawl my expedition over the end of the bracket. not really though, because then all the "lightweight" people come out saying its unnecessarily heavy. well, they can pound sand cuz if their front ujoint fails, this herculian bracket is going to spare them from pole vaulting their car!
by the way, aside from vibrational force and whatever you can muster up to hate your shifter, there isn't near enough to make this thing fail, fatigue or even breath heavy.
oh, and when comparing this to the XL, the emphasis shouldn't be placed on the arm bushing, its the bizarre linkage that makes the real difference. there are 3 rubber bushings between what your hand wants to do and what the shift forks actually do.
i may come off too sensitive about my design. its not intentional. i appreciate all the feedback and questions. if there's something i've missed, its an opportunity to fix it. if there's question and i get to prove my engineering capability in a thorough design, thats validation i am doing things right. question everything! don't drink the koolaid!