I do not know which brand cross member it is.
The current owner bought the car ... as a nice finished 32 ... and as I understand it ... the car has changed hands a few times ... so it's history is a little clouded.

This thread was not started to condemn IFS or Mustang II/Pinto suspension as a general rule, Just to show what can happen ... when too light of a suspension or a improperly installed suspension is installed into our earlier model vehicles.

Some closeup pics of the failed lower control arm mount would tell a story. Usually that kind of failure does not happen right away, without a major force, like hitting a curb or other LARGE obstacle, involved.

I'd bet that there is a section of metal in that severed area with some rust, or a smoothed edge, where the cracked edges of the metal rubbed past each other during flexing, while the crack grew bigger and bigger until it ultimately failed.

When ever there is a car up on my lift, I always look for cracked or blistered paint in and around suspension attachment points. Little rust stains are telltail signs as well. Also I look for what appear to be weld undercuts, many times these are the beginnings of cracks.


I have several customers with street rods with that type of suspension, with the underhung lower control arm mounts..Why there are no gussets in that design is beyond me.

I know that MII are not the only ones that are in need of regular inspections..I have had to do some repairs on a few cars with lower control arms that bolt through the crossmember.


I just took apart a Fatman front end with less than 10 K miles on it, and the urethane bushings were all worn out,(they'd been greased reularly), and the rattling had started. The inner bushings had started to cut into the crossmember as well, when that stuff starts to get loose it's only a matter of time before the gaps grow bigger and bigger. The bigger the gap, the faster it hammers itself to death.

The more I see, the less I like urethane. It transfers too much vibration back into the structure, hastening it's deterioration.

I think that it's use in all of these MII setups is as great a contributor to their failure as having no strut rods.




I guess it's time to schedule some inspections.


Later, mikey

__________________
BE different....ACT normal.

No one is completely useless..They can always be used as a bad example

Looking at the very first picture, it appears that it might be a TCI (GULP!! ) with the top eccentric caster/camber adjuster.

This attachment point on the frame is not a light assembly that should be able to tear up without some other outside force such as hitting a curb - hard - or possible a previous wreck though very minor. Not all street rod owners are mechanically inclined and the car may have had a sloppy condition from the day he bought it and "assumed" that it was normal. Also, failed bushings will allow extraordinary wear if it becomes steel on steel. I've seen too many very nice, shiny on the topside rods that are a disaster in the making on the greasy side.

Folks with street rods have to remember that these cars and their components are low volume - and don't have the design engineers, manufacturing expertise and QC to be almost fail proof as your average econobox. These cars need regular inspections and maintenance for safety. I built my car as a minimum to the NSRA 23 criteria - and for sure hope my TCI IFS stands up well - but then I religiously inspect my vehicles.

I'm glad no one was seriously hurt and hope that most of this '32 can be salvaged for another street rod someday.

Dave

Wow, thats an eye opener. I never knew there were concerns with this type of suspension. Thanks for the heads up. I was considering an MII for my next project, but a dropped, drilled and chrome I beam looks pretty cool.

Glad to hear no one was seriously hurt.

I agree with Dave and Mikey's comments, regular inspections would most surely prevented this. That did not happen immediately, there were indicators if someone had just looked.

Vince

__________________
Here's to you DoC, you will always be here.
My project 34
http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/34-...ght=34+progress

I have NEVER read a truer statement ...
Unfortunately, a lot of street rod owners now are just " street rod buyers " and have little to NO mechanical knowledge or just enough to get themselves into trouble. This is GOOD for folks like Powerrodsmike ... who makes a living working on these cars and he most likely has saved more than just a few from serious injury by maintaining their cars for them.

__________________________________________________ _________________________

Slightly different topic but in the same vein on ... safety

I was @ the Charlotte GoodGuys event a few weeks ago with my 32 3W ... and they have a optional drive around the track feature they do for all the registered participants. It was scheduled @ 6 pm, 7 pm and 8pm on Saturday evening. I went home when the first track tour started. I did not want to be out on the track with a few of them. Some of the folks had been drinking beer all day others had some seriously weird engineering look at the steering setup



and others ... just cannot drive.

As a side note ... some of the vehicles that were on the track tour have had more money spent on them than everything I own ... house included ...



Detroit AutoRama " Ridler " award winner ...
It is good to see these high dollar cars get driven and not just be a trailer queen.

I really liked this little 34 Ford ... and would LOVE to own it

That Ridler car has been driven some since its year on the show circuit. I imagine that it is trailered to most shows and rod runs now - and quite frankly if I had $750K in that car, I probably would as well. It has to be my all time Ridler favorite - even if it did begin life as a Chebbie

The '34 looks like a work in progress and for sure could become the basis for a very nice project.

I for sure don't blame you for pulling out if that thing you showed was going to run. It amazes me that they can license rolling junkyards - I haven't seem too many here in the North - we just have too many winter days where we can still build real cars.

Back to my cut and buff - that is if I have any arm strength left after raking leaves and cleaning windows - honey-do's ya know!!

Dave

Duece,
I was in Charlotte that weekend for work. Had no idea this was going on until I got to my hotel (Springhill @ Research), and saw all the hotrods there.
Thursday-Friday-pretty ugly with the weather but Sat was good.

Made it the speedway for a couple of hours on Sat. and got some good excercise by running around (tried to glimpse em all).

There was a 66 HEMI Ply Satellite Convert staying at the hotel, have no idea why he did not take it to the show (came in from Jersey)

And if you caught a look at that 59 Ford Galaxie (My Blue Heaven), that one was staying at the same hotel as I.

Got a chance to meet some of the rodders, but alas, as I had no idea this was happening---my camera stayed home.

Bryan

Looks like Kugel uses that type of upper adjuster as well. And has the underslung lower control arm mounts.



Later, mikey

__________________
BE different....ACT normal.

No one is completely useless..They can always be used as a bad example

i agree completely, unless the front suspension crashed into somthing this was a gradual failure-my guess would be crack propagation as mikey said.

learning to fly years ago, we learned you NEVER get in a plane without doing a preflight (inspection) first--every time!! if you find a squak (problem) you may or may not fly, some things are just a nuisance but anything that could affect flight is a big red flag.

i carry this habit over to my cars. i dont do a preflight every time i drive but i do do them regularly on all my cars. 99% of the time everything is fine but the 1% when i find a problem just starting and can correct it long before it reaches failure mode makes the whole process worthwhile.

any of you people with modified cars please get in the habit of doing walk around inspections regularly, consider it part of the hobby. like deuce said, "this guy bought the car, he did not build it" ill bet he didnt regularly inspect it either. he probably just drove it like one drives a honda--its not a factory car its a homebuilt!! he probably drove it a hundred times. the 1% finally cought up to him and this is the result. be safe out there...

And me that not even have got my Fat Man no-strut M II equipped '34 on the road yet!
Just What I needed.
But thank you for posting this anyway.
At least Fat Man have a stronger A-arm mount than that...

A follow up with detalis would be very nice.

I don't know a whole lot about this, but if you look at the above picture, you will see that these kits don't use the factory strut rods (I think that's what they are called)...They are the rod that ran triangular from the "A" arm to the front frame rail.................I wonder what this does to the "A" arms....Does it put more stress on them laterally?

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The strut moves part of the strength back to the frame in a triangulated manner. What it does is spread the load from a small concentrated area to a much bigger area. While this is important in many cases such as an OEM, not a necessary component if the frame is designed with enough load carrying materials at the point of attachment. There are thousands of these on street rods that have been there for years with few catastrophic failures. Just putting a Mll type front suspension without boxing the frame might compromise strength in that area plus adding welding/heat stresses, but my guess is that this particular car had something out of the ordinary happen to cause this failure. I'm using a TCI and if I ever build another car will consider this type of suspension again. Remember, even a common A arm front suspension is only held on to the frame by as few as 4 bolts/side, usually no bigger then 7/16 to 1/2 inch. Let one of them loosen.......

Dave

The stock Pinto/Mustang II does not have a lower A arm. The stock lower control arm acts like a A arm with the additional stock strut.

The "kits" are trying to make a cleaner look and by eliminating the strut, it makes the "kit" easier to intall. The problem that always bothered me about all of the "kits" is that everything hangs on the wimpy aftermarket crossmember. They try to make the lower A as wide as possible, but then look at how the mount is attached to the wimpy X-member. Take a look at how a GM lower A arm attaches and see how WIDE the A is, and how beefy the lower A arm mounting points & crossmember is... No comparion in strength or design. Most aftermarket stuff has always been crap IMO.

And I agree with the earlier post about Poly bushings....more crap....more tranferring of shock.

I wish people would keep in mind that these are PINTO front ends. Most refer to Mustang because it "sounds" a little more beefy than PINTO Yea, I know the aftermarket kits don't use Pinto/Mustang arms, etc, but the design is cloned from Pintos.

I just did a Google for MustII suspension,trying to find a setup with struts.
Can't find anything with "option or accessory" to add struts.
Much to my surprise (on Google) is "Trees" comments in 2003 about his experience with his setup.It takes you right to hotrodders.com back in 2003.
The thread is now closed.

I think they should offer strut options,especially in heavier vehicle applications
(my 2 cents)
I cant imagine the stress put on the lower control arms.Especially where it is probably Tig welded to sleeve. No gussets on the xmember sleeve.