Front Radius Arms

[Petergg]

Hi All,

I am after a pair of Front Radius arms for my 90 with lift, have Broken Scorpion one's and over this w/e have broken QT ones so need to be Strong (ish) any idea's on option's?

I don't want to pay 1k out for Equip

And Happy Bloody xmas to you all.

Peter

[MudAllOverIt]

Gwyn Lewis?

They're OE arms with crank and castor correction and should be much stronger than the Scorpion or QT efforts. Very reasonably priced if I remember right.

Edited to add link http://www.gwynlewis4x4.co.uk/page18.html

[jules]

Snake Racing

shipping may be needed.

[simonr]

I doubt you'll find much stronger than Gwyn's kit.

Alternatively, you could just use standard arms? I'm not convinced by the whole castor correction thing. The handling of a land rover with squidgy tyres isn't going to be affected by the camber being wrong to that great an extent.

What you do notice is the steering not self centring. This can be fixed by adding a little to the toe in/out.

That also saves you from the front prop vibration and thus the need for a cardon jointed prop shaft.

Regards,

Si

[dollythelw]

use stock arms, either cranked or standard arms and clock your swivels (or cut the axle tubes and clock them).

Tomcat offer it as a service, I think you'll find it cheaper than going the Equippe route

[Turbocharger]

Tornado Motorsport also offer castor-correcting for your axle casings - this seems to be the 'proper' way to do it to me, rather than stretching somewhere between castor and diff angles. He's done some at lunatic angles and it can push the trackrod quite low down, but oversteer is no longer a problem... You could also run standard radius arms, which must be stronger without any bends in them.

[simonr]

IF you try a FEA on a standard arm design versus a fabricated one - you see that the cast one is actually quite inspired strength wise.

It was in places about 4 x the strength of a fabricated arm.

I use standard arms!

Si

[Holyzeus]

standard arms with castor correction bushes then? thoughts?

[will_warne]

Peter, what they all said; use standard arms; they're cheap and strong. I've never found handling to be an issue with mine on standard arms and I'm intending to mod standard arms to take a differant bush setup rather than have arms fabricated. If you want castor correction Gywns a good bet, though. Bryn Hemming also does something simeralr IIRC.

If you really want fabricated, I was looking at some today which should be fairly strong.

P.S. Castor correction bushes are a pain to fit as they need to be fitted at the right angle and they also limit articulation.

[filthy boy]

IF you try a FEA on a standard arm design versus a fabricated one - you see that the cast one is actually quite inspired strength wise.

It was in places about 4 x the strength of a fabricated arm.

I use standard arms!

Si

I have to agree. We FEA'd a standard arm and it is actually a superb piece of engineering. The fabricated arms come nowhere close and as unsprung weight is not that much of an issue with non-speedy off-roading they are not ideal.

Even more worrying is that the strength of the standard arm is pretty much unaffected by the sort of surface damage they are bound to experience. Significant defects / stress risers can actually be ground out. On the other hand the fabricated ones can be seriously affected by surface damage.

FB

[Petergg]

Thanks to you all.

I have a set of std one's that came off only a couple of weeks old when taken off so will re-fit them. Have noticed a core plug leaking from behind the exhaust manifold so have another job to do as well, of to Moscow tomorrow, so will have to wait for a couple of days.

Regards

Peter

[SOA 93]

use stock arms, either cranked or standard arms and clock your swivels (or cut the axle tubes and clock them).

Whats the procedure for cranking standard arms? heat, crack testing etc, any body know?

Andy

[gwyn lewis]

i also agree whith simonr on this one

is castor correction really needed on a land rover

and for what reason do people fit them ?

by lifting your vehicle it will alter your steering slightly, but at the same time you have probably fitted larger wheels and

tyres whith a larger ofset than standard

2 out of 10 land rovers we lift will have steering problems

the problem was already there but by lifting it will inhance the problem

fitting castor arms does seem to help the problem but causes other problems (prop vibration especially 300 defenders

and discos /lower track rod bar les ground clearence)

before fitting arms it is worth checking these out first

steering box is set to tight (will not self centralise) this is the most comon

steering u.js seizing up (you will have to remove them to check propelly)

king pins worn or lower bearing pitted and the bearing will not turn propelly

(if youv had a cv brake its in the bearing the small pieces will end up and try to jam it up in a straight line

because you drive in a straight line most of time and it will make it harder to self centralise)

this hapned to mine the cage around the bearing had browken up (lots of browken cvs) and the balls had

all moved to one side causing it to jam, but you could not feel any problem when you jacked it up

before finding this i fitted 2 pas boxes/castor arms/re bushed/diferent tyres/ and all it was in the end

was a £10.00 bearing

these arms that are breaking you dont say what suspension or bushes you run

if you run long travell suspension whith hard bushes the bush will not flex enough and

the arms are doing the flexing which will cause a fracture

if you lay 2 arms on the floor the chassi end together and the axle end 11 inches apart there is 2 inches

diference in the bush measurment that is 1/2 inch in each of the 4 bushes , that is all the rubber fully

compresed on each bush , this is when one wheel is fully up and the other fully down on 11 inches of

travell on the front

whith harder bushes you can cut this measurment in half and the arms themselvs will have to do the

rest of the flexing

if you fully artuculate your land rovre on the front and look down the front arms you will not beleave how mutch

they twist and bend

this is why aftermarket arms brake as they are not designed to flex in this way

hope this will help

gwyn

[Petergg]

Gwyn,

Thanks very much I'm sure you are 100% right as I run long travell shocks with drop out Old Man Emu +2" springs and can see the arms twist, also have OME bushes. I am going to fit std arms and bushes and see how they go.

I will not fit arms that have been heated to bend them, as they should fail an MOT test :-) but thats another thing.

Regards

Peter