You upgrade. It’s important for the longevity of your vehicle, and for your own continued safety. No one wants a driveline vibrating out of control between their legs when they are out trying to have fun!
When it comes time for you to upgrade we recommend Sandcraft RCR Motorsports, and here’s why:
Sandcraft RCR uses a self-aligning technology in their carrier bearings. That allows the bearing to stay snuggly and securely around your driveline. It also corrects that angle that we mentioned above.
The simple act of controlling the angle allows the driveline to remain in phase, or balanced, all the way from front to back. Staying in phase keeps your driveline more balanced and prevents twisting and bending.
Sandcraft RCR owns their own patent and design. This means that they have created this third-generation carrier bearing with all of the safety and longevity that you will want, in mind. They stand behind their name and they own their product. They have put in the time and energy to test and create an amazing product.
You can get your UTV carrier bearings and driveline in one easy kit. I know, I know, you just started thinking about the carrier bearing and now we are throwing the driveline in! It’s important though, with just the carrier bearings you still have a driveline with U-Joints that are only rated for 2000 driveline RPM.
That means that once you go faster than 45 mph, you are exceeding the part’s capabilities. So if you were to only upgrade your carrier bearing you will still see some vibration and there is still the risk of bending your driveline.
Let me tell you a little about this driveline, too. The U-Joints in these drivelines are 3 times stronger than your manufacturers, that means that they are rated for 6000 driveline RPM (For you speed junkies, that means going 120 miles an hour before you will see any kind of failure).
They are balanced accurately and remain in phase to keep vibration way, way down.
It is important to be able to know that your vehicle is going to be safe when you get out there and start having fun. Without the proper parts you have more and more chances of that going awry.
The carrier bearing for your UTV (Side by Side) is the mid way point of your drive shaft support system. It balances and supports the end of the rear drive shaft while spinning during driving.
The prop shaft also known as the front drive shaft is the smaller section of drive shaft that connects the rear drive shaft to the front differential for four wheel drive.
The drive shaft rear connects from the transfer case to the front prop shaft/Drive shaft front. The carrier bearing supports the end of this shaft where it meets the front drive shaft.
The carrier bearing supports both drive shafts as they travel from the rear of the side by side (UTV) to the front differential. The carrier bearing also provides stability to the drive shaft while spinning. If not taking care of the drive shafts just bounce around and cause damage to the differential, u joints and transfer case.
Since we launched American Off-Roads we have consistently used the word platform to describe what a lot of people might, incorrectly, call our website. In this blog post and video, we hope to clarify and layout for you exactly why we aren’t just a website.
The simplest way to describe the difference between these two ideas is to think of it this way, if a website is a house, a platform is the house, the foundation, and even the land that the house is built on. Not every house-type structure has a foundation (think of tents, mobile homes, RV’s) but every foundation has a house.
But for those of you that like your answer a little more technical, a website is a series of simple code that moves between static pages. A platform is a framework that encompasses a website but includes many additional services and features. Our platform, for example, includes five cloud platforms that allow us to evolve in massive ways over time.
Not only does this give up the power to include exciting and innovative features on our pages, in ways that just haven’t been done before in the off road market, but our platform allows us to keep a very unique amount of transparency in all aspects of our business.
How often do you place an order on a website only to wonder how much your shipping will end up being before you get to the last step of checking out? Then after that, you have to wait to find out exactly how long your product will take to get to you? But lo and behold, now that you have placed your order, you find out this product is back-ordered and coming from the other end of the world!
ATV partsOur product pages are full of information about how and when you will be able to get your product with different shipping options clearing labeled. You will know, before you add a product to your cart, if you should expect a discounted shipping rate, flat rate or free shipping. Not only that but once you have purchased your product our platform interfaces with our vendors to decide if our warehouse is the best option to get your order quickly, or if one of our vendors can make it happen faster. Once that is established and a shipping label is made, that is sent right to your email.
One of the best things about having a platform of this kind is that we aren’t limited by media size and usage. On our product pages, you will notice several tabs to get you information, and some products even have videos from the vendor (or us, we like making product videos!). We have the ability to house that kind of media and we are including more and more videos every day.
After all of that, we still have the room on product pages to host product documents, installation guides, Q&A’s, and reviews!
Combining the ordering platform with IBM Watson also known to you as Buck allows us to expand the capabilities of customer service, search and platform navigation. Over time you will see the platform expand its ability to deliver information to you in a fast and efficient way.
Thanks to the way our platform works we have the flexibility and scalability to do anything we want to as time goes on.
So, you’ve just bought a RZR, Maverick, Talon or another UTV and you are trying to get a solid answer on what accessories you should be purchasing first. There are endless amounts of accessories out there for side by sides (SxS), and they do dozens of important things. It’s reasonable to feel confused and overwhelmed, so we are more than happy to advise you what you should do first.
If you are going to do one thing with your new UTV today, make it purchasing a new skid plate. Convinced yet? That’s okay, we are here to give the reason why we find this part is the most important to upgrade early in the life of your vehicle.
Your stock side by side UTV skid plate does a few simple things— but it doesn’t necessarily do them well. It protects your fuel tank, your battery, sometimes your transmission, and then small amounts of your front and rear differential. That’s a lot of really expensive parts I just listed. Not only are they expensive, but they are also not optional. You need those parts to work for your vehicle to keep going. The issue with your stock UTV skid plate is that very, very thin and only covers small amounts of your chassis.
If you were to look under your vehicle right now you would see that it is pretty flimsy looking, and in coverage, it can be lacking.
That’s why we want you to make sure that it’s the first thing you upgrade. Your UTV is going over crazy things in every terrain from sand, rocks, mud and more. Once it breaks you could be looking at all of those important, expensive mechanical parts being damaged with it.
When you are looking for your new UTV skid plate, one of the first questions you are going to have to decide on is what material you are looking for. There are three major materials used in this field so I’m going to talk a little about each one.
This was originally the most commonly used material for ATV’s and UTV’s, but it’s losing its favor as we find more alternatives. Steel is heavy, but the problem is that heaviness doesn’t lend itself to better protection. Steel lack general integrity. It is easily damaged, dented, and when it’s gouged it rusts. It’s also very loud, even if you have secured it properly.
These are rapidly becoming a widely used choice. Aluminum is cheap and much lighter than steel. It doesn’t rust, but it needs to be made much thicker than a steel skid plate. Just like steel, it’s an incredibly loud material even when it’s installed perfectly. Aluminum dents similarly to steel, and once it is dented it can be difficult to repair.
Since these are lighter and thinner then steel they have issues from rocks, trees, mud and more denting them and pushing the metal around to cause disformed products.
With heavy rock or tree hits you can actually cut these open, like peeling a banna down the mid section.
Not just any plastic, but ultra-high molecular weight UHMW plastic! Plastic UTV skid plates aren’t as cheap as their metal counterparts but with good reason. They are light and flexible, so they can handle terrain better. They don’t lose their shape when with their flexibility. These UTV skid plates are also incredibly hard to dent or break. They are much easier to fix than the metal skid plates.