Broken spindle
 

Not sure if this is a racing first for the 370Z, but this weekend I put a wheel off the edge of the track and hit a big *** hole. There was an almighty bang which was the spindle upright shearing just below where it bolts to the upper ball joint. Haven't fully checked the car over yet, but at this point it looks like that's the only thing that broke. It looks pretty silly sitting on the trailer with -15 degrees of camber on the front right. I was actually pretty lucky to keep it off the wall given that I had very little steering with a floppy front wheel on that side. Got my first ride on the flatbed :)

Didn't video that session unfortunately, turned the camera on but forgot to click record.

Here's what broke (actual pictures tomorrow)
http://www.the370z.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1341330297

first i've heard of... those things are pretty robust o_O

What arms and ball joint are you currently running?

I have the SPC upper control arms and ball joints which are steel. The ball joint was freshly replaced this year and is still attached to the top of the spindle arm :) Still waiting for the Doran/NMS arms :)

i wanna put em on my frontier :stirthepot:

I know .... Trust me ...I know
This little incident put us back buuuut... I know we have to make some more cuz that hit bent the RF arm something fierce.
But ... Patience may pay off as possibly our other outter joint may be completed with the new arms which will give additional caster.

Wow. That's one hell of a break...

Wow. Crazy. Musta been a helluva hole

Very cool, thanks - I'll do it as soon as you can make them. Your own race-car rebuild takes priority of course!

Replacing the spindle is a PITA, everything attaches to it. Time consuming but easy I suppose.

Just waiting for my part to be overnighted from Japan, or in this case, back ordered from Texas with ground delivery. :shakes head:

The hole is friggin' deep. It is fairly well known for tearing up cars, and I knew about it but I guess never really realized just how bad it was until I hit it. I should have gone out there when the track closed and took a picture, but when you can see it on google earth you know it is bad. I hadn't done a track walk here since last year so didn't realize it had got so bad. I've put 2 wheels off in other parts of the track and never had an issue.

Thats called a fire-truck hit (what starts in "F" and ends in "uck" ... Fire-truck of course).

Don;t think you hit a hole - more like a canyon ... great to hear your kept it off the concrete though ...

That's pretty wild there. I bet when it dropped of the upper control arm slammed into the inner fender there was no more travel so the spindle gave way at the weakest point. Glad you saved it.

Ouch man, at least you didnt hit anything

Link to carnage pics:
https://plus.google.com/photos/11278...IW3rejAmJrbhQE

Right front wheel is also bent.

Upper control arm smashed into the top of the fender but didn't seem to do any damage. No other damage that I can see yet, still pulling things apart.

Good God.

Other than that it looks like the wheel spin sensor wire got pinched a bit, but looks repairable. Brake lines are intact but look like they were pulled on pretty hard so I will replace them preemptively.

Everything else looks good!

Just reviving this thread as my spindle broke in the exact same spot as yours! difference is i didn't hit anything..... My wheel is not bent, My strut is not blown, unfortunately the tire did get sliced on the inside from hitting the strut during impact. The wheel is scratched up and chipped pretty bad on the inside of the wheel

Wow that's crazy! Possible pre-existing stress fracture?

I believe the spindle is designed to fail at that point once it's maximum stress load is exceeded. No one makes a race spec spindle that I'm aware of.

are you running stiff coilovers? could be fatigue fracture from prior repetitive incidents with bumps and stuff.


... or just a defective part.

Pretty sure shamu also broke same part at Laguna by going over the red berms which are huge

My coilovers are not set at a very stiff setting. 6 clicks out of 15 and the springs are not compressed very much. They are probably set at the lower end of their rate. I'm running the Powertrix R/T setup but I have them set for DD then track since all I have is AutoX out here in Hawaii. My wife said they rode better then stock.


Its possible but I've never hit anything. My Coilovers are set fairly soft. All I have is autoX so I don't believe these should be able to reach anywhere near their maximum threshold. Going over the damages, only thing really damage other then collateral from he failure is the spindle arm. Wheels not bent (but scuffed up pretty bad), tires not blown (but has a large gouge in it from falling onto the strut but still holds air), strut is not damaged, sway bar not damaged. Only damage is the arm and the torn ball joint of course and body panels due to the being pulled off the side of the road.

Sounds like I should probably check for cracks at the next tire change

hummm...passed the wifey test i see. probably not the coilovers then. :icon17:

It's definitely not the coilovers... those Powertrix units are not stiff at all compared to motorsports-oriented parts.

It's a casting defect or you really hit the **** out of the spindle at some point in the past and it's taken this long to fail.

The actual cause of failure I believe is when the suspension is over compressed and causes the top of spindle and upper control arm to push upwards and come into contact with the top of the inner fender.

A good sized pothole would do it, and actually softer suspension is probably more likely to allow a contact vs a stiff suspension.

The SPC control arms may have been a contributor, they are steel and have no give, and the upper ball joint they use reduces the upper clearance slightly vs stock. With stock upper arms you might bend the upper control arm instead, not sure.

Nope never seen it before.

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8b...1212%20025.JPG