73GreeNMachine Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 I heard a loud clunk coming from the right rear while i pulling into a driveway today. I got home and found out that the piece of metal that my sway bars connected to, broke off. I looked at the other side and found out the same thing. Im already looking at getting new arms because the holes are about 1.5-2 inches wide. Is there anyway to reinforce the sway bar mount to make sure this doesnt happen again? I was thinking about welding a piece of metal to the underside when i get the new arms. Would that be ok? a couple pics... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted August 6, 2006 Share Posted August 6, 2006 That makes me think that maybe the end link bushings were gone and the washers cut into the control arm. You could pretty easily add some metal to reinforce that area. Haven't seen that failure before though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73GreeNMachine Posted August 6, 2006 Author Share Posted August 6, 2006 the endlink bushings are still good, but the washers that were on the backside came right out. The washers are still good, i can reuse em! Ive never seen or heard of anything like this before... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueovalz Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 It's hard to be definitive from the photo, but it appears the entire arm has experienced a large degree of rusting. But to reiterate, I've never seen this problem before, even with unusually large sway bars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CruxGNZ Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 the endlink bushings are still good, but the washers that were on the backside came right out. The washers are still good, i can reuse em! Ive never seen or heard of anything like this before... So, wait a minute... there was just washers underneath the control arm? Was there bushing material sandwiching the control arm? Could you post a picture of what your endlinks look like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 Don't know if I would be so worried about reinforcing that piece so it never breaks again (because it probably never will) as I would be worried about what the NEXT thing to break will be. I would do a JohnC on that thing and completely restore all the suspension bolts and parts. The blast cabinet is your friend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 I don't know. Something weird is going on here. I mean I've seen the end links all bent up, but never seen the control arm with a hole in it. You can see the crack coming off the hole too, so it's definitely happened over a period of time. Something had to be seriously wrong. The bar was binding really bad, or as Mat said the end link bushings were only on one side of the control arm. Something's really screwy. The control arms don't look that rusty to me. Was this car being jumped Dukes of Hazzard style or something? Fill us in. I don't think we have all the pieces of the puzzle yet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted August 7, 2006 Share Posted August 7, 2006 Looking at picture 2 it appears that there is an old crack running from the pocket up to the arm itself. There also appear to be 6 thread shaped dents that might have been caused by the anti-roll bar end link banging against the control arm when it broke. Looking at the edges of the tear, some parts of it are rusted so this damage took time. My guess is that its fatigue failure caused by the anti-roll bar bottoming and binding and the original crack might have been casued by a hard impact of some type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73GreeNMachine Posted August 7, 2006 Author Share Posted August 7, 2006 ill post a picture of the endlinks when i get home. It had to have happened over a short time because both arms are the same way. The sound on saturday was by far the loudest i have heard it. I had heard the same sound a couple times over the past few weeks, but i just thought it was my suspension bottoming out hard when i would hit a bump on the freeway. When i first got the car i had a shop put in the bars. Maybe they didnt put them in the right way... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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