Have this happen to anyone else? How many?
2 I know of on this forum
What about the other arms, have they got broken of like that? Have this been discussed where any conclusions were made?
Not that I've ever seen other than the traction arms bending over 300rwhp
Hopefully it's not a problem for me this year since I will do as little upgrading as possible to get the car out before the snow comes.
What can be done to avoid this? Reinforcing might do something but the part is 20 years old so I think a new arm should be made, thoughts?
At a bare minimum I'd put a 360 degree gusset around a new arm if I were to build another Mk3
Have you measured the inside diameter of the pipe/arm?
The tubes are quite thick wall, sorry they went to the dump recently so I can't get an exact measurement.
No worries, it should be a standard dimension.. I think.
I'm measuring all the arms and do CAD drawings of them. So I will probably build my own toe arm this winter.
Why did it happen? Rust (from the inside and out)? Fatigue? Plain old force?
Age, no rust as my car is from a rust free zone of Australia
It looks like it broke right after the weld? If so it's the correct place since it has been hardened by the welding.
I think/feel it's just a fatigue failue from 20+ years and 100,000 KM's above 400rwhp.
Have the A1 team thought of this when they built their toe arms?
Seriously doubt it....
The only reason for buying those is because they are new (at least newer than stock) and beefier.
Don't know what materials they've specced but I believe they use Heim joints and for me that would be enough to NOT use them on a road car.
Well they are good when it comes to adjusting
But needs to be oversized :-/
I wonder how much stronger their arms are when looking at the diameter of the pipes used.