About XRF Chassis

February 1, 2022

XRF off-the-shelf ball joints hard at work winning the Baja 1000 for the 5th year in a row!

Reduced Friction

As new car manufacturers move towards smaller lighter components such as power steering pumps the need for “Reduced Friction” steering parts increases.
XRF design many features to give the most ‘Reduced Friction” parts on the market. This all adds up to smoother steering, better handling and increased fuel efficiency.

Highly Polished Studs

XRF steering Parts are built like anti-friction bearings with very close tolerances and highly polished studs and bearings.

Sealed Boots

XRF protective boots are made of “CR” compound rubber that is resistant to gasoline, oil, brake fluid, battery acid and road-level ozone.
The boots are also anchored to the housing to ensure a tight seal and easy installation.
The boots seal around the stud with a multi-lip seal. No other manufacturer gives you this kind of protection against contamination and loss of lubricant.

Accordion Boots

On components with a high amplitude stud swings, XRF uses accordion style boots that are anchored at the base and multi-lip sealed at the stud to ensure that the boot will follow the stud for a positive seal.

Step Threads

XRF use a very expensive step thread on all Ball Studs and nuts.
This is a matched thread that allows the installer to spin the nut on by hand but when when torqued it provides the strongest thread available.

Pre-Threaded Grease Zerk Housing

At XRF pre-taps all Grease Zerk housings plus supply you with straight, 45 degree and 90 degree Grease Zerks to fit every application.
This means no fuss with self tappers and no contaminants into the heart of the part.

Pre Packed with Grease

Each XRF Ball joint comes prepacked with high quality molybdenum disulfide grease.

Forged Steel Housings

In order to achieve XRF’s demand for “Extreme Duty” parts, XRF has replaced all conventional metal stamping ball joint housings with heavy duty hot forged housings that allow us to increase the bearing area and double the stud pull-out strength.

Higher Carbon Tempered Steel

Competitors generally use SAE 4118 mild steel (.17 carbon).
XRF uses SAE1045 or SAE 4140 mid carbon steel (.43 carbon).
Competitors use mild steel because it is inexpensive and easy to work with.
XRF uses mid-carbon steel for strength and heat treats for durability to produce a very robust long-life component.

CNC Machining

XRF uses Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) milling equipment to make our parts dimensionally perfect.
Every XRF part is made exactly to specifications with “Zero Tolerance ” variations.
Competitors cold forge their housings and allow large tolerances +/- .008″ for die wear allowing the possibility of having some part fit too tightly and others to fit too loosely at the press fit diameter.
There is never a complaint that XRF ball joints are too tight or too loose in the control arm.

Independent Testing

XRF have their parts independently benchmark tested against the best of their competitors at a variety of test centers in Canada and the USA.
XRF's independent testing guarantees that XRF parts will out-perform the competition.

Quality Control

All of XRF's manufacturing procedures are monitored and verified each step of the way by a sophisticated system of “Statistical Process Control” (SPC).

Each part as it is being manufactured is checked either physically or electronically for specification conformity.

The steel comes only from producers who have Computer Controlled Alloy Mixing Systems that can provide us with the Certified Accuracy of the Micro-Alloys that XRF uses.

The steel is then double-checked by spectrographic analysis by our QC department before it can be used in production.

Five pieces per 1000 are checked (1 every 200). If one piece fails, then 100% of all parts made since the last “pass” must be checked as well as the equipment set-up before production can begin again.

All of the manufacturing procedures are monitored and verified each step of the way by our sophisticated system of Statistical Process Control (SPC). Each part as it is being manufactured is checked either physically or electronically for specification conformity through each step of its manufacture. Each part is date coded and SPC charts can be pulled for inspection should a difficulty arise with the part. Our SPC system stops production if a component is out of specification. The problem is corrected and production resumes.