I'm Lucky to Be Alive

[d2dave]

Last November I went 4x4ing in the Talarook region. When driving home my steering didn't feel right. An inspection indicated that the rear steering arm was slightly bent up.

When I got home I checked the toe in/out and found a bit of toe out which was consistence with the arm bent.

Now this arm was not bent very much so I just got a crow bar and levered it till it looked straight. Toe in/out was again measured and it appeared ok so I thought all was good.

Tonight I was backing a caravan into my driveway when I started to have problems. I had just purchased the caravan and only had to tow it about 200 metres to my gates. I was half way reversing into my drive when the steering arm broke. The arm was digging into the ground when trying to reverse. With all the rain we have had it broke at a point where the car was on a slippery bit of the driveway. I thought the caravan was locking its brakes when reversing.

As it was dark it took me a while until I realised what had happened.

As I live in a small country town I probably spend 70% of my time on 100 kph roads. My last drive prior to this was earlier today with a 50 km trip to Shepparton doing 100KPH

I shudder to think what could have happened had it broke at 100kph
Head on, Rollover or hit a tree. How lucky am I that it broke in my driveway.

I will post pics when I take some tomorrow. As it was dark I have just left it where it is.

Dave.

[Chucaro]

I am glad that you are safe and well.
The type of repairs that you have done in your LR are only good for reach destination and a slow pace.
Cheers

[hiline]

well Mr Whippy, that calls for a park celebration of life i say :D;)




























p.s glad your ok .........

[d2dave]

I am glad that you are safe and well.
The type of repairs that you have done in your LR are only good for reach destination and a slow pace.
Cheers

As I have just learned, but I never thought that such a small straightening of a piece of rod would cause it to break.

As for slow pace the plan is to pull it off tomorrow and weld it to get it into my drive where I will park it until I get a replacement.

Dave.

[Roverray]

Many years ago when working for a mining company I had a Landcruiser wagon 82 model from new, I was driving at 100 kph when I lost steering.
I initially thought I had blown a front tyre so did not brake but realised I had a catostrophic failure when at the curve with a car approaching I had no control.
I went across the curve, entered the table drain and used the handbrake to slide the tail into the drain and then every time she tried to climb out locking the rear bought it back down.

The draglink had failed.
The previous night I had been driving along the top edge of 45m highwalls in a mine, if I had gone over I am sure the failure would not have been picked up.

The interesting thing was in the emergency everything seemed to go into slow motion. I put this down to the brain going into turbo / warp speed which slowed what the senses were taking in.

The vehicle had missed having a non recall replacement rod fitted because it was not serviced by a dealer. *The replacement rod was muck heavier)

always be prepared for the unexpected, you never know what is coming.

[d2dave]

Here's the pics.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/img4917x.jpg/)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ (http://img651.imageshack.us/i/img4916a.jpg/)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ (http://img257.imageshack.us/i/img4919z.jpg/)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ (http://img713.imageshack.us/i/img4918i.jpg/)

After removing and inspecting the break I feel this poses a few questions.

I am hoping we might have an engineer or metallurgist amongst us for their opinion.

From my point I believe that as it broke right next to where the bracket is welded has made the pipe slightly brittle. This explains to me why any modifications to steering allows for no welding, even if done by a qualified welder. So why was LR allowed to weld this bracket on?

Now I am no engineer but after seeing the thickness of the tube, the small amount of bend and straightening that I did would not have weakened the pipe to anywhere near breaking, had welding not been done on it.

I suspect it could have cracked from the first bend before I straightened it. If this was the case and had been left, the only problem with the vehicle would be toe out which would not be obvious apart from tyre wear. This could mean a few Disco's getting around with possible weakened steering arms.

Could this be a safety issue that I should report?
I am interested on readers thoughts.

Having said all this, after removing and having more time to think about this(since last night when starting this thread) it might not have been as major a catastrophe that I first imagined, as one wheel was still connected and in a straight line the other might have tracked straight. Had it happened on a high speed bend I shudder to think what might have happened.

This might not be the appropriate place for this question but does anyone have one lying around that they will sell? (mods delete this line if inappropriate)

Dave.

[malleefowl]

Gosh Dave that's really scary.Glad you're ok.
Do you have wet feet up that way?
Cheers,
Mary

[d2dave]

Thanks Mary,
We have wet feet but no problems with flooding.
I will be on a house boat at Mildura in two weeks. Will you be home?
We could catch up for a chardy.

Dave.

[malleefowl]

Can do Pm me for a phone contact

[DeeJay]

That looks like years of corrosion there, not since last November, no way. I think your luckier than you thought.

I have a County one you can have, should be the same ?

[JDNSW]

I agree. That does not look as if the crack is only as old as last November. I suggest that the bend you straightened happened because of the crack! It would be interesting to know the history of any bearlier damage to it!

This appears to be what I would call a tie rod rather than a steering arm.

John

[Ace]

they are really prone to bending, when you replace it get an upgraded one and move the steering damper up in front of the diff on the draglink.

Matt

[d2dave]

That looks like years of corrosion there, not since last November, no way. I think your luckier than you thought.

I have a County one you can have, should be the same ?

Thanks for the offer but much to my surprise I managed to source one locally.
There is only one 4x4 wrecker in Shepparton and they won't touch LR's but they put me on to a bloke that dabbles part time with them.

As for the break, yes having read yours and John's posts I would have to agree that it has been cracked for a long time. I must admit I was surprised that it got bent so easily with what I was doing on the day.

Where are good places to source a heavy duty one?

Dave.

[Lucus]

I had a similar experience driving back too leinster one night from the Harmony Minesite.

Cruising along minding my own business at 90kph in a near new 79 series when skippy leaps out in front of me. I got him on the downward hop and he took the drag link off the pitman arm.....

Exit stage right for me. Only control i had left was breaks and i wasnt too keen too use them no knowing what the front end was going too do.

The Ute swung right and headed off into the scrub. Lucky for me there had been alot of rain recently and the car burrowed its way too a stop in the soft dirt and didnt end up on its lid........

Was about the scariest ride i've ever had!



Many years ago when working for a mining company I had a Landcruiser wagon 82 model from new, I was driving at 100 kph when I lost steering.
I initially thought I had blown a front tyre so did not brake but realised I had a catostrophic failure when at the curve with a car approaching I had no control.
I went across the curve, entered the table drain and used the handbrake to slide the tail into the drain and then every time she tried to climb out locking the rear bought it back down.

The draglink had failed.
The previous night I had been driving along the top edge of 45m highwalls in a mine, if I had gone over I am sure the failure would not have been picked up.

The interesting thing was in the emergency everything seemed to go into slow motion. I put this down to the brain going into turbo / warp speed which slowed what the senses were taking in.

The vehicle had missed having a non recall replacement rod fitted because it was not serviced by a dealer. *The replacement rod was muck heavier)

always be prepared for the unexpected, you never know what is coming.

[Signal1]

Lucky indeed Dave.

[RobHay]

Drop everything....rush down to your local newsagent and buy a casket ticket.......:D

[Allan]

Here's the pics.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/ (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/img4917x.jpg/)

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/847/img4916a.jpg (http://img651.imageshack.us/i/img4916a.jpg/)

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7640/img4919z.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/i/img4919z.jpg/)

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7933/img4918i.jpg (http://img713.imageshack.us/i/img4918i.jpg/)

After removing and inspecting the break I feel this poses a few questions.

I am hoping we might have an engineer or metallurgist amongst us for their opinion.

From my point I believe that as it broke right next to where the bracket is welded has made the pipe slightly brittle. This explains to me why any modifications to steering allows for no welding, even if done by a qualified welder. So why was LR allowed to weld this bracket on?

Now I am no engineer but after seeing the thickness of the tube, the small amount of bend and straightening that I did would not have weakened the pipe to anywhere near breaking, had welding not been done on it.

I suspect it could have cracked from the first bend before I straightened it. If this was the case and had been left, the only problem with the vehicle would be toe out which would not be obvious apart from tyre wear. This could mean a few Disco's getting around with possible weakened steering arms.

Could this be a safety issue that I should report?
I am interested on readers thoughts.

Having said all this, after removing and having more time to think about this(since last night when starting this thread) it might not have been as major a catastrophe that I first imagined, as one wheel was still connected and in a straight line the other might have tracked straight. Had it happened on a high speed bend I shudder to think what might have happened.

This might not be the appropriate place for this question but does anyone have one lying around that they will sell? (mods delete this line if inappropriate)

Dave.

Many year ago I had a twin cam Escort that had the rack sheer just inside the left hand tie ror end. this happend entering a bend at about 80km. With luck it just wobbled badly as I came to a stop . I was able to drive it home very slowly on the steerable right wheel, anything over about 10 km it would shake like a shopping trolley. I wouldn't like it to happen again.

Allan

[disco2hse]

Hmm. Looking at the photos I should think that,as the others have said, that damage was done some time ago. The welded bracket for the steering damper is pretty standard on series rods and few (as far as I know) break there, so yours appears to have been the result of someone else's misfortune.

What is also looks like to me is that the weakened metal (possibly from a previous bend) has been levered at the point that the steering damper is fixed to the tie rod.

[Blknight.aus]

from what they teach us about metalurgy....

I suspect that the failure method was as follows.

1.when it was originally welded, the welding process or luck of the draw when the original tube was rolled up left an inclusion in the area of the end of the weld.

2. at some point the rod was bent and then straightened in this area, this allowed the inclusion to develop into a stress fracture

3. continued use and exposure to the loads created while driving along with oxidization forming in the crack caused the fracture to propogate untill a tension failure occurred.

Its quite a common component failure method, It just doesn't usually happen on the steering rod in that point as usually once you bend them they become more prone to bending and remain that way until they are replaced or strengthened.

[RobHay]

Here's the pics.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4139/img4917x.jpg (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/img4917x.jpg/)





Makes those solid steel ones they selling for Ladies not seem so expensive now.....You damned lucky