Dezrik
Follow me for adventure!
Lifetime Member
4800 Miles later my Upper A-Arm mount finally ripped off. Surprisingly I wasn't crawling when it broke. Heres a Couple of pictures from my repair. Reinforce it BEFORE it breaks is my suggestion. Honda reinforced and placed a hardened washer on my 2018 Model in the rear of the upper arm but the front of the upper arm mount is a vulnerable place for a crack and eventually will rip off the frame. Big tires, more offset, strong a-arms and crawling probably contributed to the a-arm being ripped off. I opted to weld these brackets on but I feel that possibly just bolting this on using the bolts from the bumper and the upper-arm bolt would of definitely stiffen it up!
This is what the frame looked like before the repair. The tube is almost as thin as the roll cage!
Took a bit of grinding and welding to get the original broken piece to fit back on the tube exactly the way it was from the factory. I was able to weld through the tube where the bumper slides through pretty easily. I also welded it on the opposite side (Where there is no factory weld) so it got welded from both sides.
The brace started life as a 3x3" 1/4" thick piece of angle iron I positioned it and traced out the tab with a sharpie and marked the hole. Drilled the a-arm upper bolt hole first and re-fitted it to the frame and bolted it all the way down. Then I took a 90 degree pick and used it to scratch the exact location of the holes. I then removed the bracket to drill the remaining bumper bolt holes. I also bent the lower part of the bracket so it would meet the tube the a-arm tab is welded to in the front to give it a little more surface area.
This picture is after it was finally welded into place. I welded it pretty much everywhere I could, including down the "ear" to join the two pieces together.
At this point it was 1:30am, but its ready for the next adventure. If it breaks again, I think it will either shear the bolt (Hopefully) OR really break the frame. At that point Ill think of something else
. I thought that it would never happen to me but thinking back It, I could of easily saved myself the headache and make the same bracket except bolting it together and skipped all the welding. I needed to reinforce it anyway for the long travel suspension I plan on doing this winter
This is what the frame looked like before the repair. The tube is almost as thin as the roll cage!
Took a bit of grinding and welding to get the original broken piece to fit back on the tube exactly the way it was from the factory. I was able to weld through the tube where the bumper slides through pretty easily. I also welded it on the opposite side (Where there is no factory weld) so it got welded from both sides.
The brace started life as a 3x3" 1/4" thick piece of angle iron I positioned it and traced out the tab with a sharpie and marked the hole. Drilled the a-arm upper bolt hole first and re-fitted it to the frame and bolted it all the way down. Then I took a 90 degree pick and used it to scratch the exact location of the holes. I then removed the bracket to drill the remaining bumper bolt holes. I also bent the lower part of the bracket so it would meet the tube the a-arm tab is welded to in the front to give it a little more surface area.
This picture is after it was finally welded into place. I welded it pretty much everywhere I could, including down the "ear" to join the two pieces together.
At this point it was 1:30am, but its ready for the next adventure. If it breaks again, I think it will either shear the bolt (Hopefully) OR really break the frame. At that point Ill think of something else
. I thought that it would never happen to me but thinking back It, I could of easily saved myself the headache and make the same bracket except bolting it together and skipped all the welding. I needed to reinforce it anyway for the long travel suspension I plan on doing this winter 
