Poll: Have you bent a spindle?

Yes.

Bent with TC no sway gussets, no gusset to steering arm. Gusset was cracked and couldn't get the alignment in.

 

Was it the toe that was messed up or something else

 

No, toe you can always fix with the tie rods, couldn't get any amount of caster and keep camber in spec. New spindles and it lined right up.

 

After you drove home with a ghetto toe adjustment.

 

Yes on the Wife's 4runner (uses the same spindle). Not sure when, just caught it at alignment time.

 

Yep, I was just asking around our CO BS Thread looking for a set to Gusset for quick(ish) replace.

 

CO representing in this thread. Bend those spindles!

 

We wheel harder? Nut up sucka!

 

Luckily Cali has the lead in the broken spindles, would like to avoid that scenario if at all possible.

 

Of course there's a demand. People are already buying gussetted factory, or gussets to do their own spindles.

 

Thanks to everyone that votes and gave the feedback!

I'll be discussing some new products with my place of employment soon and hopefully we can bring some products like this to market where there is a void.

 

I'll be your beta tester.

And since you're my besty, I won't even charge you.

 

I gussetted my spindles pretty early on. Went with the tc sway bar gussets as they're beefier and I got a deal on them. Now if only my shocks were just as beefy

 

sub'd

 

Pretty sure I just bent my passenger side spindle... Measured from tire to the UCA bolt, 2 5/8" on driver side, 2 1/8" on the passenger side. No visible cracks or damage. Hit a hole at speed and my wheel/steering wheel were not straight anymore... After getting off the trail I spend 3 hours in a shell parking lot doing the best ghetto alignment I could with a 3/4" wrench and a crescent wrench. Actually got it real close camber and toe wise anyways. Was able to drive from CA to NV home on it. Going in for an alignment tomorrow to see if they can get it close enough as I need to drive back to CA this weekend... New spindle on order... This is no fun and I am not sold on, nor do I have time to do spindle gussets right now.

 

I got the non sway bar version because I felt like the gusset was placed perpendicular to the axis on which my spindle bent and I'd never heard of the tie rod connection bending. I think anything that would cause the tie rod connection to bend would destroy the tie rod first.
I'm not an engineer so I feel like I have a pretty good handle on this sort of thing

Logic reaffirmed my decision.
If the sway bar version was better why would there even be a non sway bar version?
The only reason to have two versions would be to compromise for those who felt they needed to keep their sway bar.

 

It's not the that tie rod arm is bending silly, it's that it provides a good spot to locate the gusset. The non sway has less material at that spot as well, where all of them are cracking. So while the flex is at the base of the tie arm, it probably is not induced (in any significant way) by forces on the steering/ties.

 

And as for two versions, simply to give us something to argue about.

 

See I think that extra material is there to compensate for the gusset being in the wrong place due to the constraint of having to keep the sway bar.