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74Weld Portal Review
- Thread starter SierraBronco
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Appreciate the honest and well-articulated response! Being a desert guy, portals have never been on my radar. I've been a long-time stalker reading up on your journey and have enjoyed your thoughtful approach and sharing the amount of work required to make this work. Bravo to you and the rest of the pioneers in the portal world and by the way, that is about the most bad-ass rock crawling shot I've ever seen!Hmmmmmmmmmmm. That’s a really good question. The additional clearance is nice. Really really nice. It does come at a price of raising your center of gravity, but if you invest in taller shock towers you can drop that back down. The additional maintenance isn’t a big deal, unless you’re counting taking everything apart several times in a short period of time due to manufacturing errors and oversight. At this point I’d say this biggest drawback on them is the effect it has on your steering as a bronco owner. Even with the more powerful motor and in mud mode you’ll bind up frequently on the rocks. You’re just asking a lot from the rack with huge tires, low pressure, the massive scrub radius, and additional weight from the portal box. We did some stuff this weekend on Triple 7’s and Milts Mile that really impressed the bronco haters, but the steering was embarrassing at times. I feel like there’s an opportunity for someone really smurt to dial in a badass electric motor for these things, so maybe that will happen one day.
Been following the travails of late....
Interesting because I once again pulled and checked everything.... Mine are good to go. NO loose bolts, no leaks... all good. I did have one of the first ten sets though..... So prior to any "upgrades" or "tweeks" in design.
Interesting because I once again pulled and checked everything.... Mine are good to go. NO loose bolts, no leaks... all good. I did have one of the first ten sets though..... So prior to any "upgrades" or "tweeks" in design.
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Same here...also one of the 1st ten. Haven't had any issues w/steering bind either, other than when the frt locker is locked. Can definitely feel it's heavier when aired down for sure, but I can always steer. Coming up on my next maintenance interval so I will check thoroughly! One thing worth noting is that @5GENIDN and myself have a different hub/bearing assy than you guys. Don't know if that is a factor or not
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- #110
Funny thing about the shot is that it was due to the steering binding up. We were going to do a three (or seven) point turn to get the steering free’d up and pivot on the slider like the regular cars that turn their wheels do. Once we lifted the tire it started to free up so Kept pulling her forward and she is really doing well on her throttle control. Pulled it up in this position and looking at thought “ya know, I think it’s actually going to settle and be okay.” This wasn’t just a photo opportunity that she then backed out of. She drove through it.
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- #111
I was hoping to do some measurements and comparing to other portal rigs while there but didn’t get the opportunity. I know ours is much wider than yours and we’re both on factory wheels. A guy I know with Tibus portals and 40’s was there but then his steering had an issue and by the time he got that worked out I was trying to burn ours to the ground then had to fix it. So…all we have so far is our measurements.
Also remember that our tires are the heaviest 40’s out there and we’re playing with the air pressure. After this trip I think we’re done trying single digits up front. Gonna try 12-14 psi next time and see what that does. Mud mode definitely helped.
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Which tire did you end up going with? Why would yours be wider than mine? Just because of the hub/bearing change? I can check my track width when I get home. Anything else you want measured?
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I feel like there is something going on with your steering. No one else sees to be having the binding issue.
I think the "track width question started with me.... I measured my Track width a little narrower than he did... I chalked it up to two things. 1) we are running different tires and 2) we are probably taking are measuring locations from slightly different locations on the tire... We were measuring the width and comparing outside of tire to out side of tire front width and back width. I think... If I remember correctly mine were like 84 up front and 87 in the rear.... I was trying to measure the outside of the contact patch of the tire running 35 PSI... Joey got a little larger numbers than I did but the front to rear difference was about the same... Part of that difference (front to rear) is due to the coil over lift and the slightly angled A arms pulling the front tires inward... I was surprised though that there was a 3 inch difference.
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Should probably measure with wheels removed hub to hub sometime. I am planning to change wheel studs next maintenance interval (did you ever find longer ones for yours? I ordered some ARP ones that are probably too long and I will cut them). I'm thinking sticking to our setup might be the way to go considering the problems these guys are having!
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As far as steering goes I am not having any issues either. I do find it a little stiffer when aired down but the only time it was bound up was when my tires were wedged between some immovable objects.... Since I do not run bead locks I run at about 10 to 12 lbs psi though so that may be a bit of a difference maker????
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- #117
Toyo Open Country MT 40x13.5R17 on beadlocks
And no clue on why they’d be wider unless bearing backs are different, but I thought they were supposed to stay the same at 3.5” wider
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- #119
I should add to the review portion of this thread-in person I’ve only seen two rigs running werewolf portals and one running tibus portals. All of them were leaking gear oil. And the design of the 74Weld portals is still better in my opinion as we don’t need to take the portal box apart to pull the axles. Just open the window and remove. Became friends with a guy running werewolf on his toyota and he shelled a CV on his first real run. Couldn’t get the box apart to remove the stub shaft so ended up just cutting the axle and letting it flop around to get back to the trailhead. Our unit bearings also seem to be of higher quality, but I don’t have the knowledge base to legitimately have an actual opinion on that. Just seems more gooder.
I'm not on portals, but I am beadlocked with 37x13.5r17 Cooper Discoverer STT Pro’s. I didn’t like running at 7psi because my sidewalls got super noisy and it felt like I was rocking sideways, so my new minimum has been 10psi. Maybe you are putting a little more stress onto the portals at such low pressure? 
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