Technical Spindle snapped this weekend.

I haven't driven my 64 el camino in a couple months cause i've been daily driving my 55 plymouth or 41 ford. Local lady wanted me to look through her late husband's stuff. So I fired it up and attempted to make u Turn in front of my house and bam, the wheel fell off. The spindle seems to be original to me. But if you look at the break, it looks like it has been cracked for a while on the black parts

 

Well that sucks! Glad it happened right there at low speed. I suppose you will be doing a once over now and listening for anything strange for a while!

 

Wow that was lucky! close to home, low speed, and did not even wreck the fender

 

Classic fatigue fracture. Hope you’re all right. Any other damage to your car?

 

No other damage to the car than what's already there.

 

If stuff is going to break, it's always nice when it happens at home and nothing else gets damaged and no one gets hurt. That wheel must have taken a hard hit at sometime in it's life to do that.

 

You're right, it was probably cracked for a long time. It has the classic look of a crack that propagated slowly up to the point where the remaining material was overstressed and failed suddenly. Lucky you weren't out on the freeway.

 

I have never seen a spindle break like that. Maybe someone who had the car before you ran into something and cracked it. Lucky that you were going slow and near your house.

 

Bullet dodged!

I'm no expert but looking at the the stub, next to the break, where the bearing would have been, it looks as if its been heated at some time, like when a bearing has failed. Might explain some of what's happened?

Chris

 

the load on a spindle is highest when you're doing tight turns, like pulling in/out of a driveway...so that seems to be where they usually break. Fortunately. I've had suspension parts break close to home, also.

you'll get it fixed, one of these days...if you can find parts...

 

Glad to hear for you that it broke at slow speed and near to home. If that was in India they would that spindle repaired in double quick time .

 

If it were me, I'd check THE OTHER SIDE carefully.
Magnaflux?

 

Sounds to me like this is your lucky day!
That spindle has been cracked for a long time, and it appears to have been getting worst a bit more on a regular bases until it finally broke. It also appears that the possibility there was an inner bearing failure at some point in its past. That bearing failure could have been the starting point of the ever increasing crack, how ever long ago that may have been.
I hit a pot hole in a truck one time (couldn't have been going more then 2 or 3 mph at the time of the break). The stud on the lower ball joint broke just below the tapered fit at the lower control arm (between the control arm and the rubber boot for the ball joint). It was a clean break, no previous cracks visible. Getting that tapered stud out of the control arm was a project, I had to get the cotter key and the nut off, then unseat the taper so I could pull it out the bottom!

 

Wow, in 40 years of totally abusing GM spindles on dirt track cars I have never seen one break like that.

 

Luck was on your side! As said above, I might change the other side just to be safe.

 

Luckily, I've got a set of brand new spindles here at the shop. So I can toss those on easily. Gonna look into the bearings tonight.

 

A dab of JB Weld will fix it right up.

 

A hot bearing could have led to loss of heat treat and premature, catastrophic failure. I learned that on Forged in Fire.

Glad you are ok, that could have been nasty.

 

I'd say that Chris and the others nailed it spot on. Someone burned up a wheel bearing on that spindle sometime in it's past life and over time it gave out.

 

Lucky, or not lucky, that was a rude moment.
All those years of bustin' knuckles keeps one from despair when shit happens.
Thanks for the pictures I would never guess. The excess heat deal makes sense.
I have committed stupid gambles with some old tow tucks and got away with it
( plumbers vans are the worst )
One time my J-hook chain bit the dust. Like the world stopped turning right there.

 

So glad you weren't hurt, that could have been bad.

 

No absolute answers here. If you are really curious you could take it to a someone that specializes in heat treat and stress fractures and have it analyzed but I think you'll put a new spindle on it and call it a day.

 

You can tell it was all ready cracked and rubbed smooth at the cracked areas, then final failure, completely broke off.
Maybe previous owner liked to bounce off concrete curbs when parking on the street ??

 

good excuse to add 2" dropped spindles

 

looks like it had a bearing race spinning on it at one time maybe?

If I did not know any better that looks like the same El Camino I sold in about 1990 in Santa Rosa CA .
Mine had a 4 speed in it .

 

Never seen that happen on factory parts before, but nothing surprises me now. Easy fix. Glad it didn't cause a bunch of body damage. I love those early ElCos.

 

Add me to the list of people who never saw a spindle fail like that before, either. Wild.

 

My thought is that wasn't a crack per se but overlap of material when forged while having some sticture when first forged the "glue" gave up over use/stress.

 

Paging the HAMB metallurgist! @38Chevy454

 

Were I guessing, I would think the failure probably started at the top, then the bottom, then the spindle could move up and down causing the crack at the bottom to expand until it failed.

I can see a shadow on the very edge at the top of the spindle, then a much wider break (at the top), before the shiny final break. There is pretty old the crack at the bottom edge, then the spindle probably started working up and down. I see 4 distinct lines at the bottom of the spindle, which would mean the crack went a bit deeper with the stress, until it reached the breaking point. On a break like this, that darkest areas have been there the longest, the entrance of dirt or dust into the crack will leave a mark at each point the movement paused before another crack opened a new area for dirt/dust to enter the crack. The shiny material is the final material to break.

Were I to guess at the cause, I'd say its likely the bearing failure that started it. The additional heat may have played a part, but I suspect that the removal of the old bearing race probably had a lot to do with producing the first crack(s). I'm not sure there would be any way to prove the real cause, so suspicion and experience are the only options.