Warning - 2b Suspension Failure

[Guest micha_1]

new or not new, thats not the question here!!!

 

the problem are the owners who always buy the cheapest parts which they can find...or even use 2nd hand parts during built.

 

forget all these rubbish from QH, rallydesign or all these cheapish aftermarket, china-brands.

 

invest a bit more, buy quality, fit and forget and the major point: drive safe!!!!

 

if me or somebody of my family would be involved in an accident with a car where i can prove that cheapish aftermarket parts and an attitude of buying cheap without regard to the consequences have caused the accident i would take care that this owner goes into prison!!

[agent_zed]

Hi

not sure its entirely cut and dry in this instance as part of the problem was not due to the owner fitting these items but ones supplied by robin hood and even then there is an inherent design flaw with the items used which won't go away by simply buying better quality ones.

 

Iam also not sure that it is the owner/drivers fault if he/she chooses to by cheaper parts as long as they are parts that are up to code and fit for purpose. it would be difficult for example to blame someone for an accident if they chose Nankangs instead of bridgestones provided the speed and load rating was correct for the vehicle. I wouldn't know a good ball joint from a bad one i just order one from my motor factors. Another motor factors may charge double for the same part but it wouldn't be any better.

 

if you were to take it further for example where would the blame fall if someone bought the very expensive semi-slick toyos that are road legal, but are aweful in the wet, and green-stuff pads,which i believe need to be hotter to work well, and then had an accident on a rainy day.

 

obviously no offence ment just being devils advocate (too much time on my hands)

 

As you say though driving safe and regular checks are the order of the day.

[Redspec]

new or not new, thats not the question here!!!

 

the problem are the owners who always buy the cheapest parts which they can find...or even use 2nd hand parts during built.

 

forget all these rubbish from QH, rallydesign or all these cheapish aftermarket, china-brands.

 

invest a bit more, buy quality, fit and forget and the major point: drive safe!!!!

 

if me or somebody of my family would be involved in an accident with a car where i can prove that cheapish aftermarket parts and an attitude of buying cheap without regard to the consequences have caused the accident i would take care that this owner goes into prison!!

 

QH etc. are well known brands, you have to live with the fact that if you go into a motor factors that is what is on offer!

 

If Budget end gear bothers you why do you have a hood, if after market parts are sold OFF THE SHELF IN A MOTOR FACTORS you have to assume it is fit for purpose.

 

I could spend hours looking for the most expensive brands, WHY?

 

I am not looking to get 250,000 miles out of the car.

 

More of an issue is how a part is used within the design of the kit, and the testing of the design as said if you have a problem with budget parts why drive a hood. The original post states that they were supplied with the kit and therefore it is up to the kit seller to check they are fit for purpose? hoods have always been built to a price, most do less than 3000 mile a year, so 3000 mile between mot's is not a lot. As for second hand parts my father is changing his car, 9 years old, FULL FORD SERVICE HISTORY, 20,000 miles, Mondeo 2.0 Zetec, and he is getting buttons for it, are these parts worn out?

 

Steve

[speedtripledan]

As stated above Robin hoods are "THE budget part" of the seven market, Ive had things fail on dealer serviced cars worse one being a suspension spring snapped if i had been driving at speed i would have had an accident it dug into the tyre and would have ripped it to pieces thankfully it snapped whilst parked on my drive.

 

Would that have been my fault ? fitted by the manufacturer when new. prison should be kept for dangerous drivers and drink/drug drivers

[Guest Christine]

Hi, I have worked for a major motor manufacturer and also 1st tier automotive manufacturers, Comandis needs to know that 1st automotive part manufacturers sell the same parts to the the likes of QH etc as they do to the likes of Ford, Vauxhall etc, So to make a statement "i would take care that this owner goes into prison!!" seems a bit rash and ill thought out, Does he think the chairman of Toyota is worried about going to prison!

Garry

[Guest micha_1]

me and my friends, also the garage owners which i know, do avoid in any case QH parts...that must have a reason?

 

anyway...i again watched the picture of this totally worn balljoint and i must say: before such a balljoint snaps of it already caused some noise or a wobble in the steering or any other signs which a sensitive owner should have recognoized.

 

it has a reason why car constructors recommend service intervals...and considering a sierra model, it was at around 6500miles or once a year.

 

but most kitcar owners do all themselves often do not give the "requested" service to their cars (besides oil and filter change) and this is the result.

 

so everybody reading this should check his car for signs of wear in this area.

 

forget trusting in an mot, even when the car hasnt been driven much since the last test. the mot does not prove anything at all for me.

 

have seen and owned too many cars, kits and "proper" cars which had been dangerous - chassis, steering and suspensionwise - and they all passed the test recently before my purchase.

Edited April 1, 2010 by Comadis

[johnlrichardson]

Ball joints don't wear to the extent shown in the photo unless its done many 1000s of miles without being checked correctly

 

Extra care must be taken when checking them as per earlier post

 

HTH jon

[Guest micha_1]

LOL.................

[Grizzly]

Hi All,

 

Well I started this thread, so I'd best pitch in again.

I noticed no difference in the car's geometry or driving behaviour from day one of my car being on the road to the 10,000 miles or so later when the ball-joint failed. It was always a bit heavy on the steering, but I assumed this to be normal.

As I stated before, this was a 'heads up' to people with 2B Wishbones, although it doesn't appear to have happened to anyone else. I even asked the guys at GBS about it and they'd not heard of any failures such as this. Sure, they'd heard about them coming unscrewed and therefore failing, but this wasn't the problem here. The fact remains though and as others have acknowledged to me verbally, that this particular set-up is simply wrong. The ball-joint is acting in expansion and this compression type of ball-joint was never designed to perform in such a way.

Whatever, as I didn't build the car from complete scratch, I have no idea whether or not the original ball-joints were new from the onset - they may not have been. Couple that with the fact that the rubberised boots were of the semi-transparent variety (apparently prone to becoming brittle in sunlight) and probably stood from 2002 for four or five years before the car made it onto the road, may have been a factor in their premature demise. Although I never 'prised' them myself during the build (It never occurred to me to do so) when the car went for SVA in 2007, I watched the SVA examiner give ALL joints a good going over with his crowbar and nothing seemed amiss. I have written to the original owner on the off-chance that he may have been able to cast further light on the matter, but he never returned my correspondence.

I'm not casting any accusations at anyone, either with regards to their workmanship or anyone's manufacturing quality. Having removed (as a precaution) the second set and examined them, they seem to have stood up very well to the second 10,000 miles or so with no adverse effects. I therefore will not be replacing these after another 10,000 miles and will probably leave them longer. I will though, be keeping a careful watch over them going forward.

This thread is simply to highlight a potential 'weakness' that people need to be aware of, but it seems to all intents and purposes, to probably be a one-off issue.

Let's keep our prisons clear for the really bad people eh?

 

Regards...

[richyb66]

The topic of bottom ball joints has been well covered already but I thought I'd just post this information which I thought might be relevant.

 

I'm still in the process of building my 2B and I wanted the wishbones powder coating so I had to remove the balljoint. Knowing how tight they are and not having the proper tool I knew that some damage was inevitable and I ended up chewing up the outside of the joints around the 4 cut-outs, so a pair of replacements were purchased. The two photos below show the old joint on the left and the new one on the right for comparison

 

 

 

The new joints arent QH but are made by First Line ( http://www.firstline.co.uk/PAGES/aboutus.html ) and sold as a replacement for the QH QS972S Peugeot 405 type joint.

 

I noticed that the old joints have the ball fitted from the underside of the joint and are retained by a seperate metal disc that is held in by rolling over the bottom of the joint body whereas the new joint has the ball fitted from the top and are retained just by forming over the edge of the hole that the tapered part of the ball comes through.

 

This is more obvious if you remove the rubber covers (which I did) but I'm wondering if the retention of the ball into the body is better on the old type joint as the hole in the main body only needs to be big enough to accomodate the articulation of the tapered part whereas the hole in the new joint must have started big enough to allow the actual ball part to pass through and is made smaller by the forming process. I suspect that the load bearing portion of the nylon cup inside the joint may well be smaller on the newer joint but short of cutting a pair of joints in half, this is something I can't prove - although I may well buy another new joint and do just that out of curiosity.

 

The joint is subjected to loads that it would never see in it's original application and although I'm sure it has a fairly generous safety factor designed in, it can still fail. I've still fitted the new joints (together with some tabs to stop them unscrewing) but when I finally do get on the road I will be keeping a close eye on them and in particular look out for damage to the rubbers that might lead to accelerated wear.