DS 450X MX Frame

[anthonylynne]

im just tryin to find a replacement peice for my frame that broke, you cant get it from BRP. if anyone can help that would be awesome cause welding does not work and i want to put the frame kit on it but not without replacing that peice first.

[jlrenken]

what piece do u need

[anthonylynne]

im looking for the left side front frame peice that comes from the upper steering stem mount and then comes down and around the radiator and then back in to the lower bumper mount. the one that almost everbody has trouble with breaking at the upper front a arm mounting bolt

[twopump78]

you should just trade your ds for a 250r... lol

[LTRracer4]

Hey Anthony, Id call BCS (413) 736-2201, Im sure they could help you out, or atleast lead you in the right direction.

[anthonylynne]

thanks i called and they said they could get me one, your awesome man.

[ds450xracer]

How much you end up getting that peice for mine has broken on both sides?

[anthonylynne]

bcs has the frame piece for 90 a side

[florentino]

Originally posted by anthonylynne
bcs has the frame piece for 90 a side

buy 4 cause it will break real fast. once the frame is under stress it will never be the same. check all your frame check your wheel base, and see if its good. i dont whant to replace mine i am working on something to fix it.

[TNT]

Originally posted by florentino
buy 4 cause it will break real fast. once the frame is under stress it will never be the same. check all your frame check your wheel base, and see if its good. i dont whant to replace mine i am working on something to fix it.

Agree, $90/side what a rip!!...it will more than likely fail again even w/frame kit like Ratsracing's did. Happens to me I build something better for a fraction of the cost then sell for $100/side lol. :cool:

[anthonylynne]

my bike will never see race track conditions, i bought it to trail ride and take on the dunes. i didnt want a bike that everybody had so i got my can-am and so far love it. Hopefully with not racing it that my frame will be just fine

[florentino]

Originally posted by anthonylynne
my bike will never see race track conditions, i bought it to trail ride and take on the dunes. i didnt want a bike that everybody had so i got my can-am and so far love it. Hopefully with not racing it that my frame will be just fine

some dont even race and the frames a breaking. i think that with the mx model its even worse cause the longer arms put more stress.

[TNT]

Here I got a whole photo album from different riders...trail, mx, xc, you name it. Make no mistake it can happen to anyone, If you understood the design you'd see why....Agree, tho BRP markets the quad as a "race ready "quad' except parts of the frame that won't take trails then continuous to sell a part for $90 and the kit they know will fail. If I were you I'd put some gussets in there or figure something else out.

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/DSFRAMECRACK-1.jpg (http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/?action=view&current=DSFRAMECRACK-1.jpg)
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/DSFRAMECRACK.jpg (http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/?action=view&current=DSFRAMECRACK.jpg)
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/framecrack.jpg (http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/?action=view&current=framecrack.jpg)
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/Picture1.jpg (http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/?action=view&current=Picture1.jpg)
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/Framedetailcrack.jpg (http://s280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/?action=view&current=Framedetailcrack.jpg)

:rolleyes:

[LTR450_#67]

Ouch

[anthonylynne]

TNT id love to see a pic of the front of your bike and see what you have done to help prevent this, i have seen the pic of your idea but i would like to see it on the bike to get a better idea of what i can do other then just some POS bolt on kit that won't work

[TNT]

Originally posted by anthonylynne
TNT id love to see a pic of the front of your bike and see what you have done to help prevent this, i have seen the pic of your idea but i would like to see it on the bike to get a better idea of what i can do other then just some POS bolt on kit that won't work

I honestly don't know what I will do since our quad is in KS and I work in SC right now, I have not seen it....We have plans to go to Balance MX in KY together in a few weeks so I will actually look at this and see if I can come up with something...Will let you all know then. I’ll get some dimensions if I don’t see an easy fix, maybe design and prototype a new piece(s) then market it.

If you put it in perspective, if you were to consider all the owners that post out here as a lot sample, the hand full of pics above is not that bad. You know there are allot of times that build tolerances cause some to fail, others will be fine, that may even be the answer for most wait until/if it happens, but for you as Floritino said you have already seen the failure so it does not make sense for you to keep doing what you know will fail. That's all we are trying to bring to your attention.....

You could try the kit, ATV 4 play makes a good machined part that will help, but still all this does is just band aid a poor design that has too large a bolt into this thin extruded bent material with inadequate surrounding structure(too thin, too much concentrated load on the hole/bend). Somehow the piece needs to be kept from bending at the stretch die bend radius and a large hole such as Ratsracing did with gussets, OR, the material that the hole goes through has to be thickened with doublers, OR, the large hole removed and replaced with two smaller ones up the frame member, OR, a combination of them all be best. Yes having the transfer plates or ‘kit” that BRP/BCS sells is much better than nothing on the current design any model any type riding since it does more than prevent this crack, or, even to double them up or make steel ones.

If you don’t want to wait for me, now that you understand the design and it’s issues maybe you can come up with your own ideas….this is not uncommon, we put gussets over every quad 4130 frame we have ever owned as many others do if for no other reason to just be safe, no frame out there will last forever eventually they all fail in fatigue, corrosion, etc….auto/aircraft/etc.

Build tolerances are interesting, seen a guy lately that failed his LTR 3 rd gear 4 times even w/a ATP aftermarket fix, I’d MUCH rather deal with this small DS frame issue than a tranny tolerance problem…he sold out after spending well over $4, 000 in gears he can’t even sell his quad for a reasonable price, more loss! Same with a frame you don’t understand what you’re doing you still fail or can cause other major ones, sometimes it’s just not as easy as people think. I’m working issues right now where different expansion and constraction rates between mating aluminum and composites are causing the composite to crack in compression and another where tolerances are causing doors to fail, so there are many factors that are at play here some don’t understand including engineers lol. :D

[anthonylynne]

i will try the bolt on kit first, it has nothing now and when i bought the bike it was already broke so i have no idea what was done to it to make it break but i got such a sweet deal on it that i didnt bother to find out, lol.

If you can come up with a used pipe for me that would be awesome, im planning another dune trip to waynoka on MAY 21st so im hoping to get one put on before that but im on a small budget right now :-(

[TNT]

Originally posted by anthonylynne
i will try the bolt on kit first, it has nothing now and when i bought the bike it was already broke so i have no idea what was done to it to make it break but i got such a sweet deal on it that i didnt bother to find out, lol.

If you can come up with a used pipe for me that would be awesome, im planning another dune trip to waynoka on MAY 21st so im hoping to get one put on before that but im on a small budget right now :-(

If you have not already purchased the BRP bolt on kit you might wanna save your money and make something better yourself. Thier kit will not stop your new frame member from breaking again, below is why and some better ideas imo.

I got no quad but trying to put it together from photos, looking at all the photos of failed members you can see that the two(one or the other or both) are bending inward at the top or bottom....See the pink arrows in my diagram. I see this since if you look at the photos the outer surface has been pulled apart in tension, inner in compression hence my pink arrows are the compression quad loads failing this area. The failed frame from one large bolt allows this happen (the frame to spin) around the bolt. This is structures 101, you don't allow structure to spin around a fastener, you need two fasteners min to keep that from happening, the two members stabilized at this bolt....so now we have to figure an alternative.....

The problem is really at the bottom at the hole and the only interaction the top has is a HUGE bending arm length around this bolt....Make sense? Up there where the two come together if anything is loose not good, as you can see stabilizing the upper bend radius of the failed frame member does nothing to keep the two from bending the direction of the pink arrows below...The lower pink arrows are where all the upper/lower arms high loads are coming in so the bending arm(distance from the arms to the failed bolt hole) is less than the top(you can see if try and bend the lower part of the frame member around the failed bolt hole it's more difficult than doing it a long ways away at top.....Either a large bending arm and small load at top or visa versa at bottom can cause this failure, or simply put an unstable member that bends, or what we call a bending moment(force x's distance). Also, if you consider two diagonal pink arrows(one upper and opposing lower) they form what we call a "couple" that can twist or flex the two members or front of the quad.

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/Slide1-8.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/Slide2-5.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk191/Terrylport/Slide3-2.jpg


This frame does not lend itself to welding that great since it's thin and I'm guessing of the wrong material(not 6061-T6) probably 2024-T3(no I don't know for a fact but it was probably bent around a stretch die in the soft aluminum O condition(not heat treated) than later heat T3 treated) so bolt on is probably the best option. If we can figure a way to increase the surface and cross sectional area by widening, lengtheing, and thickening the BRP plates they may work since when you place plates in that direction they take out side bending in the direction of my pink arrows. They don't do much for forward and rear ward flex or bending, but again looking at the failed photos we are not seeing the BRP plates bend that direction. The atv4play machine fitting takes our side bending and foreward/rearward but fails to pick up the bolt that is causing the problem in the first place since it would make the maching part complicated sitting on a different plane than the arms, maybe need a 5-axis or complicated 3 axis costly part. We can add more plates to take out fore-rear loads if we see them by placing more plates in that direction.

So if you use plates like BRP did but modified and improved that can pick up as many existing bolts as possible by the use of spacers or fillers and the arm bolts, and pick up the one thats failing are all the others with 4130 enlarged plates you buy at the hardware store for $15 you got the best cheapest design available.

I again need to see the quad but thats what I'm thinking based on pics. Hope that helps you understand this problem more and how to fix it, if you followed along you at least got a little better understanding of how to interpret structural loading :D

[nate450x]

Great post TNT! You are always very informative and I love learning as much as possible to help better our quads.

And as for you stating that we need to try and tie into the bolts at the weak spot the BCS plate does exactly that. I know that the billet design of ATV4Play might be a bit stronger but it does not tie into the frame. The frame kit that I purchased from BCS I feel is a pretty good design because it ties everything together including were those huck bolts are causing the frame failure.

If you look at the last picture the 4Play design uses the lower bolts on the frame and the a-arm bolt where as the BCS design uses the lower bolts, A-arm bolts and upper huck bolts (which have to be cut and replaced with regular bolts) to tie everything together.

This is just my opinion and I know it might not be the best solution to the problem but I do think it is going to help significantly.

[florentino]

this one is for tnt. or anyone
the front bumper has 2 holes and they are real lond i replace them with grade 8 bolts and i think this helps some what. vs really weak bolts i do have a aftermarker bumper.
i also put a bigger bolt under the skid and the star bolts suck,
6 points on the bolts is the way to go.
i can feel the frame more stiff

[TNT]

Originally posted by florentino
this one is for tnt. or anyone
the front bumper has 2 holes and they are real lond i replace them with grade 8 bolts and i think this helps some what. vs really weak bolts i do have a aftermarker bumper.
i also put a bigger bolt under the skid and the star bolts suck,
6 points on the bolts is the way to go.
i can feel the frame more stiff

I'll get to see the quad in a week or so at Ballance, I'll add this to the list of things to check out. :D