*Check your spindle gussets for cracks with B/S talk

After seeing the recent 2 catastrophic failures of broken spindles I decided to put my junk up on the lift this morning to inspect the condition of my spindles. I found both driver and passenger side gussets are cracked at the weld. The spindle itself isnt crack, only the weld for the gussets is cracked. This is now the 3rd set of spindles for me. The first 2 gusseted sets were only bent not allowing for proper alignment numbers when doing my alignments. This is new to me.

 

Crazy. I went hard on my 2007 and never cracked them

 

guess you never went hard enough

 

Look like AP. Yeah?

My TC w/sway bar version have an extra gusset where your seem to have cracked. Pretty happy i went with the version i did. Will definitely be looking them over when i get a chance

 

Dang. Guess I should look at mine.

 

Maybe the crack propagates through the small weld at the bottom and makes its way through the main section of the spindle.....

 

My TC non-sways cracked as well, replaced the spindles with sway version, all's well since. These were one of the first few welding projects I took on, but did take heating/cooling precautions when doing them.

 

Well fuck, me and greg may not have been isolated incidents?.......

 

Maybe we need @JLee to make some 1/4 plate gussets....

 

Seems not, I found others had cracks there when I found mine and did some digging.

 

Haha I guess

 

If they are cracking at the weld I don't think I thicker plate would prevent that?

 

I've tried finding complete failures of ungusseted spindles, have you run across any? I think I'd rather replace bent spindles every so often instead of having a breakdown in the middle of nowhere.

 

I have the TC sway bar gussets, they do have the a gusset that goes right there. i guess I know why it does now. I should probably check on em...

 

That's what I'm thinking. Those spindles may flex a lot more than people think.

 

holy sheeet. glad you checked em.

 

Looks like some are bending, some are cracking near the weld, and some are cracking at the weld. I agree changing to a thicker metal wont fix the cracking at the weld.

 

I didn't, and that is a great point, with a bent one you could (likely) still drive it. I carry a few 1/4" wheel spacers for emergency situations where I may need to space out the wheel if something gets fubar'd.