has anyone braced their trailing arms?

I would go with the later. They are like a mechanical fuse so you don't bend your tunnel/foot well. You should see how they are bending, landing a jump or banging a ditch or stuffing a creek bed. I have a 2001 SXR-700 and I have wacked some serious stuff and it has not wrecked anything yet. I even blew the seals out of a shock on one blast. I don' think the Viper arms are any less strong. Possibly they changed the angle and that is stressing them more. I hit a frozen pumpkin and thought I snapped my elbo and all that did was stress ping some paint off the arm. I have also stuffed it under ice and went over the bars without bending them or the steering parts. I would LOVE to know what you hit to bend them. Doug
 
i guess i ride aggresively by jumping approaches cause thats all there is to do around here, what happens is that they kink a little bit and i dont know it then i jump again and total out the arm. I dont know it seems that they bend easily, ive bent 7 of them already.
 
DUDE!! 7 arms. I don't know what to say about that. I don't want to tell you to put anything to stiffen them up. If I had the old ones from both sides, I might make some sliding ones with a shock spring on each one. Real stiff but it should give if needed. If you have bent both sides pull out your old ones and make a set of sliders. I would love that welding project. Doug
 
The taller height of the 8DM spindles acts as a longer lever providing more torsional force to the trailing arm. I am still surprised that Yamaha Engineering did not implement revisions to the arm design to compensate for this. Maybe they did, or maybe they deemed it unecessary, we don't really know. While we (myself and some engineering buddies) analyzed this to death, we still could not explain how the arm could withstand significant impacts on one hand, and yet fail on what seemed to be trivial force. I have bent 5 trailing arms on a Viper, 3 due to impacts that should have bent them, but the other 2 as a result of minor bumps. One incident was at minimal clutch engagement speed (less than 15 mph). The tip of the ski stuck momentarily through the snow into a clump of frozen swamp grass before deflecting up and over it. The impact was not even enough to move me forward on the seat. I wouldn't have known that it bent except the sled was leaning, and the steering was off kilter.

The only other viable cause that we could think of was some manufacturing irregularity that allowed the arms to be out of spec from a force before failure perspective.

Most of us with this problem have gone to aftermarket arms. Be advised that not all aftermarket arms are created equal. I won't make any suggestions other than advise you to do your research (such as you are doing here).

To answer your question directly, I have a couple of my bent arms straightened and reinforced with perforated channel. These are my backup arms in case I bend or break one of the aftermarket arms. They will keep me on the snow until I can obtain a replacement.
 
at least there are other people having this problem, i could trying going with northern lites arms, a guy on snowest was trying to sell them but at $600 i couldnt afford it. but a couple of the arms bent by minor bumps too. my friend has a 98' xc 700 and he ramps the same things i do and his arms are original and he's owned the sled since day one. maybe it is an engineering problem. its still the most reliable sled i have ridden other than this problem.
 
Some of the guys on here will attest to what can happen if you brace the arm too much and you hit something unforgiving. The 2000 Phazer has the shorter spindles coupled with the lack of coolers under the running boards that act as tunnel reinforcements. This combination allows the tunnel to bend instead of the arm. Bent tunnels are way more unhappy than bent arms.
 
NY_SXR700 said:
I would go with the later. They are like a mechanical fuse so you don't bend your tunnel/foot well. You should see how they are bending, landing a jump or banging a ditch or stuffing a creek bed. I have a 2001 SXR-700 and I have wacked some serious stuff and it has not wrecked anything yet. I even blew the seals out of a shock on one blast. I don' think the Viper arms are any less strong. Possibly they changed the angle and that is stressing them more. I hit a frozen pumpkin and thought I snapped my elbo and all that did was stress ping some paint off the arm. I have also stuffed it under ice and went over the bars without bending them or the steering parts. I would LOVE to know what you hit to bend them. Doug
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Never thought about hitting a pumpkin!!!!!!!!
 
yamiman said:
at least there are other people having this problem, i could trying going with northern lites arms, a guy on snowest was trying to sell them but at $600 i couldnt afford it. but a couple of the arms bent by minor bumps too. my friend has a 98' xc 700 and he ramps the same things i do and his arms are original and he's owned the sled since day one. maybe it is an engineering problem. its still the most reliable sled i have ridden other than this problem.
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I put a set of powder lites on mine after bending my right arm. Nice looking and seem to have been stronger, atleast I didn't bend those. Might want to check out there website, I know they weren't $600 back in 02.
 
3 rights and a left and have some stress marks on the inside of the left 1 on the sled now. The ONLY time I bent them on my XTC was when I HIT something. I know that the Viper tunnel is thinner than the XTC tunnel. I think Yamaha designed the arm to kink before the tunnel. I have a buddy that bought a lightly wrecked Viper 2 yrs. ago. Thought he would replace the t-arm and radius rods and be good to go. After a new bulkhead and tunnel he was not so happy. I also thought about aftermarket arms, but with my buddies experience fresh in my mind, i am sticking with stock!

Dave :o| :o| :o|
 
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