MTFCA Forum

I ran into a guy at the gas station during the MTFCI Tour in Baraboo, WI. He was looking at the front end of his car and looking perplexed. I walked over and saw this. Gave me chills! He said it began to steer kind of funny and he thought he'd better pull into the gas station to check it out. It was a new tie rod bolt, recently installed. Notice, the nut & cotter pin are still there! The threaded end of the bolt remained in place, while the rest of the bolt broke off and fell out. He actually found the broken off end a 1/2 mile back! It tracked well enough to get him to the gas station. As I stated in the subject line, a very lucky guy!

I've told you all I know. I don't know who the owner was, or what supplier he purchased the tie rod bolt from. I can tell you however, the bolt was brand new. The crack occurred just below the edge of the shoulder, at the very first thread. Would love to be able to take a hardness reading!

that is usually due to excessive wear in the top hole. With the threads socked down hard, it's free to wobble, placing strain right at the termination of the thread. With a very close fit as designed even the worst part would be expected to survive. Lucky guy!

Was on tour once where we almost all bought bad gas and one at a time were forced to pull over to clear carbs. One fellow who was meticulous with his car pulled over, cleaned carb and started up only to have the car take off with a mind of his own...that pin/bolt was missing. I walked back through the rough grass and actually found it...it had undoubtedly been loose for a long time and the multiple forays into bumpy grass finally bounced it out. I think the odds of having found it were astronomical and I should have bought a lottery ticket! And when I say "meticulous", I mean it - he admitted to taking everything apart prior to the tour "to have a look-see" and obviously despite being meticulous, either the cotter pin or pin and nut were left off upon reassembly...so even a pre-tour walk around may not yield evidence of obvious trouble brewing if you're not very very serious about it.

Close-up of that photo shows well worn spindle arm too. Do I see daylight at the rim

And the spindle arm should have a bushing to the top of that arm, all that gap would have fractured any tie rod bolt!

Oh my!! I just replaced mine! I hope the failure was not due to faulty bolts and bushings, but from a poor installation as Scott suggested. That bushing should have been in there too tight to fall out. It's been a couple hundred miles since I put them in, I now will examine them very closely.

I don't think that's daylight, just a glint of light reflecting off oil/grease sitting on top of the bushing (which appears to be short). It is hard to judge wear based on that photo, but I would be more comfortable if I saw more wear on the top of the yoke. Scary.

Looks like wear pattern of one of those spring things for worn out front ends.

robert daniello wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 24, 2023 2:52 pm

I don't think that's daylight, just a glint of light reflecting off oil/grease sitting on top of the bushing (which appears to be short). It is hard to judge wear based on that photo, but I would be more comfortable if I saw more wear on the top of the yoke. Scary.

Correct. It's just a reflected light, as you say. Yes, the bushing was short. Don't know why. If it were short on the bottom end, I'd say that may have been a factor. In this case, I'm not so sure about that.

While not in a position to closely inspect anything, I will say that the tie rod yoke did not have any wear that was so apparent that I could see it, and I'm usually pretty good spotting stuff like that. Honestly, to my thinking, whatever other wear may have been involved, this bolt should still not have failed as it did. Maybe whoever installed it tightened the living hell out of the lock nut and brought it to within a hare's breath of its yield point???

I wonder what that spindle arm bushing looked like before he put the reproduction tie rod bolt in? In addition, it doesn't hurt to oil them before you go on a tour.

I wish I could see that better. Every part of that spindle arm and cleaves that I am looking at appears to be worn to a unsafe level. If any of that is worn to a point the bolt was wiggling around,it would be easy to see how it would break.

Lots of possibilities here but one that would concern me the most is if these were heat treated, was the failure due to a crack that started in heat treating, or were these parts heat treated and then zinc plated after without a post plating bake to prevent hydrogen embrittlement. ? Multiple things to review with the manufacturer as a start.