Replacement parts and continuing problems

[Ex Member]

When I look at a swivel from an engineering perspective I see a difficult item to build and be strong enough. It amazes me the stock ones hold up to so much abuse. I doubt they are something simple. You would need a careful choice of alloy casting or forging and heat treatment. Comparing one made by one place versus another is not a simple task.

[Ex Member]

Point being... Unless you find someone with a metallurgical analysis shop that wants to do a bunch of work for free, this would be some serious coin to learn anything useful. You need to find a broken one. You need to source new ones from the different possible sources. You need to figure out what those source are first. Then unless you find that keen guy that wants to work for free, tens of thousands of dollar will be needed. The best reasonable bet is for someone to talk nice to the right people and find out where these are made and try and wiggle out some info on the fabrication specs.

My suggestion, buy the genuine ones. They are not really expensive, at least for the later style. And hope and pray they are still made of decent quality. That or start a business re-plating old ones.

[Mr Noisy]

^^^ you talk sense.

I was also surprised who google brings up no results.

I'm mainly trying to raise awareness!

Talking to the right people may help, but having them analysed and starting our own crusade is probably not worth it!

[Snagger]

I have just gone back to the linked thread with GaryMV about the parts quality. Ironinc that the discussion on page 3 about not having adverts had posts separated by an advert! I pity Gary's position in that thread - he would have to be careful not to say anything that could jeopardise his job (or legal proceedings) while trying to give the responses we wanted; not an easy balancing act, and he did seem to get some unfair personal vilification in tone, if not in direct wording, especially about the damper turrets, so it's no surprise he left. If someone of similar position comes back, we all need to be very careful not to alienate them but to keep them on-side, ideally eliciting sympathy to our wish for sensibly priced good quality parts.

I too avoid the blue box of woe. One part that I do use on my 109 and RRC from them, though, is their CV joint. That i on the basis of the destructive testing carried out by Ashcroft Transmissions, revealing that the Britpart CVs are tougher than the OEM or genuine parts. I do wonder, though, if it's due to a lack of hardening, making them more able to take enormous torque in the test, but also making them wear more rapidly in normal service...

As for copies of successful designs, like the Allmakes turrets or Scrapiron's entire range, that's just how business works and the whole reason for patents and copyrights. These companies make cheaper replicas because they don't have to worry about development costs and early marketing where you have to convince the public of the benefit of a novel idea. If they infringe patents or copyrights, then they have that financial issue and may have to close down that product line, so will face costs anyway. If they improve on an idea, we get a better product and they get the trade. Sadly, where an item doesn't have a patent, there is no legal protection. Complaining about morality is futile - business doesn't work that way. We have a choice as customers to pay the original designer or the copier, but out of two identical products, the cheaper will usually win. The lesson is that the developers of new products also have to go through the hassle and expense of patent approval, which acts as a disincentive. It also pushes the price up for the customer. It's not good, but that's the way it is.

[CwazyWabbit]

Also worth pointing out that defending a patent isn't exactly cheap either (from what I have heard).

[Jamie_grieve]

The facts are that they have shattered with very little use, when similar failure of genuine balls are virtually unheard of. I believe you have engineering back ground. Can you not tell by Mr Noiseys photos that these are poor quality castings, possibly from grey iron ? No one else on this forum with any engineering qualification seems to be willing to offer an opinion.

True, I think any of us with relevant qualifications and / or experience would agree it's some form of ductile iron.

Point being... Unless you find someone with a metallurgical analysis shop that wants to do a bunch of work for free, this would be some serious coin to learn anything useful.

With all due respect, I disagree with this completely.

I believe that the difference in material between the broken part and a genuine part would be obvious and easy to determine in a home workshop environment. The results of this would justify any ongoing process. The Charpy test as I suggested previously is simple to set up but even hitting two test pieces between the open jaws of a vice would probably be all the testing that's needed. A small cut or weld across the test piece would really show up any form of ductile Iron.

[Ex Member]

The "broken parts" are gone... They do not exist and can't be tested. Yes, someone could do some rough seat of the pants destructive testing cheaply if they wanted to buy a bunch of swivels assuming they could figure out who are actually the different manufacturers..... All to save 50 pounds on a swivel ball.

I'm sure they are all very hard and brittle. They need to be strong. They do not need impact strength. I would be very surprised if any are actually cast iron. The failed ones in the photos could certainly be cast steel. Cast poorly with poor heat treatment.

Just save a lot of headache and for safety related parts buy genuine or branded (branded on the part itself) OEM.

[bill van snorkle]

True, I think any of us with relevant qualifications and / or experience would agree it's some form of ductile iron.

With all due respect, I disagree with this completely.

I believe that the difference in material between the broken part and a genuine part would be obvious and easy to determine in a home workshop environment. The results of this would justify any ongoing process. The Charpy test as I suggested previously is simple to set up but even hitting two test pieces between the open jaws of a vice would probably be all the testing that's needed. A small cut or weld across the test piece would really show up any form of ductile Iron.

I don't think they are a 'ductile' material Jaime. They are as brittle as glass. Ductility equals malleability, a quality that allows the material to be drawn, hammered and deformed without cracking.

Mr Noisey, You have associates who have also broken swivel balls. Did they also throw the broken bits away ?

I disagree with Red90 that swivel balls don't have to be capable of withstanding impact forces. they ultimately support their share of the vehicles mass and the mass of the wheel and hub assembly. All shock loads from striking bumps and obstacles on and offroad are transmitted from the wheels through the swivel balls to the suspension. Original equipment balls have also proven themselves capaple of tolerating the impact forces of excessive swivel bearing freeplay, the explosive impact forces of a grenading cv joint, not to mention the impact forces of severe collisions and multiple rollovers. Mr Noisey and his associates Swivels seem incapable of merely holding up their corner of the vehicle, and as previously stated, could someday cost someone their life. So rather than just write that off to experience and go purchase genuine balls,it is really now a moral obligation of us that are aware of this issue to put it out there in the public domain and keep it there til such a time as the product is withdrawn and hopefully the manufacturer and sales agent held to account.

Thankfully the market for replacement swivel balls in Australia is small, and hopefully none of those Brit Part units have been sold here.

[Ex Member]

By "Ductile Iron", he means cast iron, I believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ductile_iron

I know what you are meaning Bill with respect to the impact. I mean not impact in metallurgical terminology. There are high loads, but not at the frequency one would call impact.

I certainly want this public as well, but we need some facts. We need to know where these broken ones came from. We need to know about the trucks they broke on and what they were doing. We need someone to look at the broken ones and compare them to new ones OEM ones, new genuine ones and old genuine ones. somebody needs to figure out where they are made and talk with those people....

Anyway, it would be useful to hear anyone else that has had this happen. I've been looking and other than Mr. Noisy and his friends, I can't find anyone that has mentioned breaking a swivel. Maybe there was a bad batch. Maybe Mr. Noisy and his friends wheel harder than most. If it happened to me, I would not be throwing the broken part in the bin.

[Mr Noisy]

Hello everyone.

My situation is I have broken 2 balls, one on each side, both fitted at the same time.

One broke after around 6 months but the other perhaps 2 years down the line.

Both happened at a pay and play site where I was wheeling hard, but also I do have excessively offset wheels.

I do however not think that any kind of offroading which does not involve the wheels becoming airborne could realistically be hard enough to warrant this kind of breakage.

Lots of competition land rovers must see much harder work than I give mine.

Both actually broke by surprise, no particular impact, but there had been frantic offroading going on throughout the day both times for sure.

All sub 10mph and no flying land rovers though!

I will contact my friend Mark who hopefully has the remains of his ball, bearmach supplied late 2012, mine were Britpart, early 2010 I think.

In both my breakages I had to send the remains back to Britpart in other to get a replacement part.

I have to say I was hoping for more response than I got.

The second time when I was well out of guarantee took some serious persuading to obtain a replacement.

[Mr Noisy]

Just spoke to my friend, he does indeed have some broken material, couldn't find much of it in the desert!

[Snagger]

Looking at what forces Wildcats and the likes' swivels are subjected to without failure, then there would appear to be a quality issue rather than a use issue.

I had a pair of Britpart swivels on the 109, and their manufacturing was certainly substandard - their chroming was so thin it looked more like yellow zinc passivating, and their exterior surfaces were finely grooved from being turned on the lathe with the coarse cutter but not being finished off properly. They held oil initially, but I later had to go back to 1-shot as the seals wore a bit and oil was weeping. They didn't seem to have strength issues, having been used for years and off-roaded around mountain tracks with the vehicle heavily loaded, but I certainly wouldn't have after-market swivels again.

[Mr Noisy]

Wildcats use D2 axles and I think that's when the vehicles went more mainstream, the Tomcat was a D1 basis though and plenty of those are still racing today.

[Les Brock]

My situation is I have broken 2 balls, one on each side, both fitted at the same time.

You need to get to the doctor mate

[Mr Noisy]

You need to get to the doctor mate

Haha yeah I know but I think my balls are FUBAR!

[Mr Noisy]

So who wants to be the testing candidate?

Or are we saying it is something mark can do himself?

[bill van snorkle]

So who wants to be the testing candidate?

Or are we saying it is something mark can do himself?

Well you could post a piece to me,I could probably get it analysed at Melbourne Uni, but there are probably quicker options.

[Mo Murphy]

Sending a bit to Bill would be a good idea, two results coming to the same conclusion would make for a more convincing argument than one.

Mo

[Mr Noisy]

I'm under the impression posting metal to Australia can be an expensive occupation

I will get hold of some sample on 16th Feb and we shall proceed with basic workshop tests and then if anyone thinks they need to/can take it further they can do.

We would need the samples returned though and a brief report as mark is trying to build his case against Bearmach.

[Nigelw]

Unless you got no win no fee then be careful if you wanna go to court with it!!!

[Mr Noisy]

It's more a case of getting them to agree it was a faulty part and reimburse his large financial loss because of it, then he can get back to square one at least.

[discomikey]

there is an act, cant remember which one off the top og my head, but it is "fit for purpose" or something along those lines, basically, a spare part for example for a 4x4, must be fit for purpose, the purpose of a 4x4 is to be used across all terrains. if the ball isnt fit for use off road, it doesent comply to the act.

i had a set of parabolics fully refunded because they had cracked, twisted, warped and generally misshaped that much my truck sat down 6" on one side.

i claimed i had used my truck on pay and play sites regularly, but these springs should be designed to cope. they obviously couldnt cope with the wrap involved in driving off road in some curcumstances. so they couldnt argue. and gave me a full refund.

1X set of RM parabolics later and couldnt be happier with them!

[elbekko]

there is an act, cant remember which one off the top og my head, but it is "fit for purpose" or something along those lines, basically, a spare part for example for a 4x4, must be fit for purpose, the purpose of a 4x4 is to be used across all terrains. if the ball isnt fit for use off road, it doesent comply to the act.

i had a set of parabolics fully refunded because they had cracked, twisted, warped and generally misshaped that much my truck sat down 6" on one side.

i claimed i had used my truck on pay and play sites regularly, but these springs should be designed to cope. they obviously couldnt cope with the wrap involved in driving off road in some curcumstances. so they couldnt argue. and gave me a full refund.

1X set of RM parabolics later and couldnt be happier with them!

Just looked at the Britpart site: http://britpart.com/page.asp?PageRef=37

Especially this bit:

> Product specifications are given but it is up to the end user to ensure that the product is fit for that purpose.

How nice.

[Nigelw]

But the question must be "how legally binding is that statement"???

It cannot be marketed as a replacement part for X that will do the job and is a like for like replacement and then have a clause that states that it is not fit for the intended purpose of replacing part X but you can buy and fit it anyway.

Suppose a bit like condoms, they state "not 100% safe against X,Y & Z" in their terms and conditions

Any legals out there who could shead some light on how binding or not their clause is?

[Ex Member]

They have a two year warranty on everything. They will replace or credit for another part. Getting any money for subsequent damage would be quite unlikely without investing a large amount of money. Whenever I've had a failure within the two years on a BP supplied parts, I get them to send a genuine replacement and they credit the cost of the original part and cover shipping.