In the future we'll see a liability disclaimer that'll go like this "Full scale replica of high quality chromed, forged steel pitman arm, for display purposes only".... People will still buy it.
Thousands of tons of force? That may be a bit of an overestimate. I see no reason why a machined steel (what most people call "billet" is not, but that's another show) pitman arm could not be designed and manufactured such that it was up to the task. It won't look exactly like it's forged counterpart, but it would be close. Now, obviously it can't be made from bubble-gum, but there are steels out there that make Ford "super forged" steel look like silly putty. I'm also fairly sure that a cast part could be made to withstand the loads involved here, but it's gonna end up looking different than the forged part would, and it won't be made from the same material. Every manufacturing process has its own quirks and wants, so you have to tailor your design and material choices to suit the process. Where we run into problems is when the Chinese take a forged steel part and make a cast iron clone of it. THEN the **** hits the fan.
future?! hell...its happenin' now. thats basically what the "dirt track"style tires that speedway sells say in their nomenclature. I LOVE the look of them, I was gonna buy a set...until they told me they were for "static display"??? Speedway, DOES, at least, have good customer service...they don't hide from a problem.
Corvair boxes are light duty boxes and the oem arms are wimpy from the get go But they work good .Now add a steering arm made in china that has been ground smooth and polished for chrome and you woulda been better off modifing the oe one. **** China
An importer of chinese tires has been legally held to cover a recall. A loophole allows them to be considered a manufacturer. The smart guys have insurance policies to protect them from this. That recall will sink this importer for sure.
I am probably the one you are thinking of Ian. As the HAMB metallurgist, let me offer a few words of observation: 1. The fracture does give a lot of details about the type and initiation of the fracture. I can not tell specific failure mode and initiation (the real cause of the failure) as the pics posted are not high enough magnification. 2. Chromed parts and hydrogen embrittlement. For HE you need to have a susceptible metal (generally heat treated steels fall under this), and a sustained stress. I do not see this pitman arm as having a sustained stress, it is a cyclic loading. HE parts fail after being loaded under stress in a short time of usually 72 hours or less. Most longer term failures are not HE. HE fracture surface look like rock candy, a crystalline appearance. Any plating can induce hydrogen and the post plating bake is a requirement for heat treated parts. 3. The initiation site is of significant interest as it allowed a crack to start and then it propagated. How fast it propagated and the type of failure are what is needed to be determined. The initiation could be due to a tool mark, a machining error, or ???? Just about anything that caused a s tress concentration at that point. The initiation and propagation of the crack will determine what the corrective action should be, you must identify the type of failure. Most parts that fail have some existing pre-crack and then have a large final-stage overload fracture. The final-stage is not the failure type, it is simply the consequence of the prior crack.
I just looked at the Speedway website and those Corvair arms in their catalog have "DISCONTINUED" stamped on them in big red letters. The pictures of the arms look pretty ****py. Can't tell if they're cast or forged, but the unplated one looks pretty rough. It sounds like Speedway is a legitimate place though and that they're not going to risk selling pieces of **** like that to anyone else. I hope they put whoever supplied them with that **** out of business. Has anyone had any problems with Speedway's Vega arms? I have one and now I'm starting to wonder about. I ordered a plain steel one a few years ago and they sent what looks like unpolished stainless steel. It looks like maybe investment cast stainless. But maybe it's nickel plated steel or something. It has kind of a shot peened sort of surface texture on it. It's pretty beefy and nicely made. That really should be a FORGED part though for a pitman arm, so now I'm a little scared. I think I'll put a magnet on it to try to figure out whether it's stainless or not.
You know, I have to say I originally posted this to warn others about this incident. For the most part many of you have been productive but the small percentage that just want to make uneducated statments about the car in question. Don is an amazing builder and you were to see the car you would be appricative of it's quality, and Rat Rod is far from how I would describe this car is the quality is obvious. I know what a Rat Rod is (I drive one and love it). Right now I am ashamed that I brought this to the forum as the insults toward Don that have resulted really make me rethink why I ever joined this forum. I am constantly reminded there there is a select few that are determined to be *****s. Yep I said it. You should be thankful that nobody was hurt and that someone was willing to bring this potential falure to your attention. Who know's? Next time it coul be you! (Unionville) Otherwise I would like to thank the individuals that have been constructive in this thread.
The reason a vast majority of new bias ply tires are "not intended for highway use" is because they are not DOT approved. First, with the exception of trailer tires, the Dept. of Transportation is not going to approve a bias tire with seriously outdated construction to be used on a motor vehicle. Secondly, if the tires could possibly get a DOT stamp of approval, I imagine the cost of going through those hoops would be great, and with the low volume of "vintage tires" they sell all year (compared to companies like BFGoodrich, Goodyear, Pirelli, etc.), would not be worth the cost or would make the price of the tires too high. The "DOT approved" slicks and whitewalls people use are only DOT approved because they are either a re-capped radial tire or have a whitewall stuck on a radial case. I am sure the tire companies can not legally sell a tire for road use that isn't DOT approved....so to sell any tires at all they have to put the disclaimer on them. There's nothing wrong with the tire....people have been using them for years without incident. There's probably not a single bias Firestone on any traditional hot rod these days that wasn't initially sold as a "static display only" tire. I'm going to run the dirt track tires on my car and wont think twice about it.
Man Im looking for a stering kit and this kinda of scares me.I went to O'riley's and the didn't carry a kit just a outer tie rod here the lower ball joint here from Moogs.Autozone no luck either only duralast brand and they would have to order the parts.****s to say the least I seen a kit from Kanter's but they don't specify what brand are the parts in thier kits.Im really starting to worry about where I can get my parts.
The DOT approved lots of bias ply tires over the years. Any bias ply tire I ever ran on the street was DOT approved. DOT approval relates to the construction and tread pattern. Race tire carc***es typically are not thick enough,to resist punctures, for DOT approval,even if they did have tread cut into them.
Thanks for posting this. Sounds like Speedway is taking care of it, which is good, but the big picture is that we have lost our manufacturing base and I doubt we will ever get it back and that ****s. It's what made our country the world leader that it is and we've forgotten that. What alos ****s, is that anyone who has done any manufacturing knows that you just cannot compete with the prices that are the result of an extremely cheap labor force in China and other countries. The only way we can compete is if we impose tarrifs on imports and this would mean if this part was made in the US it would cost you $240.00 instead of $85.00 (not that $85.00 is that cheap- seriously, this thing probably cost less than $20.00 to make in China!) But, it also means that Chinese goods would have a tarrif that would make their price the same, so you'd make it here. AND you'd keep people employed and our country stronge. So, are you willing to pay for it? Is a quality made part worth the extra cost? I happen to think so, but I get the feeling that I'm in the monority on this. Don't get me wrong- I'm as cheap as I can be when buying a car body or fenders or gauges, but when it comes to the drive train and suspension, I want quality parts and quality workmanship. The other real disturbing part about this example is that this part should have been FORGED from the get go. It's not even a "like" part and you would never know it...scary. Just my .02
rab71...this is a great post!! It has opened my eyes!!! I will think twice about some of the critical parts I buy. I would rather use an old part than some CHINA JUNK! Just ignore the idiots...I know it's hard sometimes. Thank You!! Clark
yeah...you too, huh? I wonder...I have not heard anything yet, regarding the Vega arms...So far, mine is holding up well...so far.
I agree, mostly, and understand...the only problem is, this problem...how do you know just what a product is capable of? what its limitations are? the only way to even have ANY re-***urance is that some governing body has tested it. Of course, that even accounts for very little, in a day where those organizations are compromised as well...i.e., things can only be as regulated as those who regulate them decide to enforce that standard. I think that "use at your own risk" product is kinda, in its own right, neglegent...especially when its a tire, and you tell folks not to use it in the real world, but...you know they are going to. Its economics, and I get it, but...I think I'd rather not be sued, personally, because a tire failed, AND, even if it wasn't the tires fault, just the fact that it is not dot approved, puts the burden squarely in my lap, don't it? I think thats a little shameless on the mfg's part, but thats just me... The bias ply's on my car, however are a dot approved tire, even the cheater slicks, and they are not a re-capped radial...
So would you chrome hair pins and drop axels? This is what i am about to send off? Tell me about what is the what best for Axels and hair pins?
The arm was said to have been supplied by Total Performance. Just checked,their site is down. Glad to see Speedway has pulled the part.Hopefully they will go further.
Well I guess I don't know as much about what the tires are approved for as I ***umed. Oh well. Still...you kinda have to base the products you use on their reputation. If all the tires Coker sold were no good and had a tendency to blow out all of the time, I don't think they would be in business as long as they have. And I doubt people would still be using their products. Regardless of what their disclaimers state, vintage tire companies make and sell products intended to be used on regularly driven street vehicles. They know people aren't buying a new set of tires every year or two to put on diplay in their living room. And as such, they don't make a tire that isn't doing to be fairly reliable on the street. There are posts all over this board of Coker replacing tires that had problems balancing (why would you balance a static display tire?) or were out of round (who cares if you're just going to look at it?) or had other general defects. It just comes down to how safe you feel using the product. Incidents like this bring out the stuff that was thought to be good quality but isn't. This guys pitman arm broke, he posted it online. Another guy inspected his and found a crack. Within a day or two, Speedway, a huge company, stopped all sales of that part. Thanks to the HAMB and other boards, the ****py stuff usually gets weeded out. I haven't heard of anything catastrophic happening as a result of the static tires and they've been out for a couple years, so I feel pretty confident about using them.
I bought a intake manifold from Summit, last summer. I unpacked the box and turned the intake over and it said "Ford Motor Sport" and under that it said "Made in China!" I used the bolts supplied and when I was at the last torque sequence, "Snap" the ******** head snapped off the damn bolt. Lord did I cuss. Had to take it all apart and buy some USA quality bolts!!
You know, when I read this kind of stuff, and I hear about some poor guy who worked at a GM plant for a decent wage, whose job was sent overseas, and now works for substandard wages and no benefits at McDonalds, and when I think about the human rights and environmental abuses committed daily by Chinese manufacturers, all in the name of selling us a bunch of low-grade junk, and dangerous lead-filled toys for our children, and I think of all the politicians who sold us out to big business and let our manufacturing base be sent overseas. The same ***holes who (while most of America struggles to survive in the bleak economic climate they helped create) are now making huge money either as lobbyists or consultants for the same companies who payed them to screw us over while they were in office, I think to myself, "we should hang those *****s from the closest tree, and beat them like a ****ing piñata".
Pic from Speedwaymotors.com http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/4565,436_Corvair-Pitman-Arm.html?itemNo=corvair
This place is sort of like a small sample of the large world around us. Not everyone has something constructive to say or do, but they will comment anyway. Personally, I would like to say thank you for bringing this up here and I hope you (as well as others) are not discouraged by the various levels of comments here. I think this is a very serious matter and it definitely opened my eyes as well as puckerd my b-hind a bit. I think as the rodding industry gets bigger and bigger it is important for us to stay alert and help eachother pick quality products from quality vendors. I think it's hard to control what's being produced elsewhere in the world, but we as a group of consumers can help eachother stay away from **** products and help influence the market. Take your time, research, spend the extra buck when needed, buy quality, sleep better at night knowing that your car is safe and you can drive the hell out of it. Thank you for sharing. Keep sharing. Scary stuff.
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