JPhillips-998

Hello All,
I don't know how many of you visit the racing forum but as a word of caution, we had at least 3 ball joint pin failures at Road Atlanta this weekend. I was not one of them but as a result, I and many of my fellow racers will be replacing the pins annually as a maintanence item. Annually may be overkill for street cars, but I don't know. It seems like cheap insurance against catesrophic possibilities.

If you car is lowered, you have "spirited" drives, or you haven't replaced your pins in a while, I would strongly suggest it.

sharky47

Exactly the reason I am working on late-offset arms with early style joints. You can replace them in half an hour for a whopping $30.........

JPhillips-998

Daniel,
That will be a welcome and valuable contribution! With your machining abilities how difficult would it be to cut a solid arm out of a block of aluminum, similar to the "charley" arms?

JPhillips-998

Daniel, maybe you can answer a couple of other questions I have...

I have heard of xray-ing parts to check their condition, would an xray help identify weak points in these pins? Where do you get parts xrayed?

Dr.Porsche

X-ray and current for cracks.

Mike C.

The 'pin' is the part of the ball joint that sticks up into the steering knuckle and held with the pinch bolt?

evil 944t

Jphillips, Machining the arms is the easy part but the costs of the metal, machine time, metal treatment etc.. adds up so fast that, I feel the "charlie arms" are actually a decent price.

An ex ray would help help identify the weak point in the design but rather a fatigued or faulted part. It would be cheaper to just replace the part than to go through all that trouble.

sharky47

X-ray or Zyglo should work. We used the Zyglo method on aircraft wing spars and such. Eddie current works too, not sure how expensive that is though.

TD in DC

charlie arms are great . . . but you just cannot get them on a timely basis.

Dave in Chicago

Jeff - Was there any pattern in the failures (which arms used, alignments, etc.)?

On the Charlie Arms, you have to kinda get in on a batch it seems. A couple of years ago, my shop got in the habit of putting some on the shelf to avoid the lead time issue.

J Silverman

IIRC two of the three failures were aftermarket arms.

theedge

I think there was a thread a while back about how Racers Edge had a bad batch from their supplier??

JPhillips-998

Dave, two were Fabcar and one was stock.

These were pin shears, not arm failures which is what happened to one Racers Edge user. Carl at RE contacted all customers from that batch and replaced/repaired the arms....great service!

It is pretty cheap insurance to replace the ball joint pins if you are going to have an alignment/cornerbalance. I will change mine annually.

Mike C.

Please describe what is meant by 'ball joint pins'. Is it the pinch bolt?

Mike C.

My car is still on the original control arm/ball joints with 230K miles so I may do a little preventative maintenence here...