froggy47

OMG I found a place is SD that sells them retail & they want $75 each for a simple male heim style rod end.

Aurora Rod End # PRM-8T

I can buy a similar part from 3 or 4 vendors for about $10.

Why so much for Aurora?

John Shiels

the others are junk. Good heim joints are not ten bucks!

0Randy@DRM

Aurora has many different levels of rod ends and etc. They have the "less" stress application products all the way up to what you found, heavy duty.

Randy

froggy47

I get there is a difference between China junk and good quality made wherever, but it is a shock that the price is that high. I would have figured 20 or 30 bucks.

John Shiels

good ones last. My experience is in off-shore racing and they get pounded there tying triple engine outboard motors together and drives on inboards. Buy the best you will never look back. I bought T-1 bars from Randy 10 years ago and they are still good. They were one of the early ones GM sold. They probably went to cheap crap after that. I just lube them now and then.

mAydAy121

You should always look at your application and choose a proper heim accordingly.

The PRM-8 is an extra heavy duty heim with a heat treated 4340 Chromoly body and an ultimate static load capacity of 23310lb. You could step down to something like an AM-8T for example with a USLC of 16238 for half the price, but it has only 2/3 of the ULSC. You have to justify whether the higher end heim is justified in this case. Aurora publishes tech details on all models, so I'd shop around for something that will work for you that is perhaps slightly cheaper.

froggy47

I will ck that out, I just talked to a retailer guy who sells in SoCal & I told him what the application was, but I'm not sure he really got it as he also recommended RAM-8 which is even higher strength.

I am not building a space shuttle, just a street/track car.

db2xpert

And what might happen if one lets go in a high speed turn?
Overbuilding is a safety factor.

John Shiels

Solofast

There isn't a lot of load in a swaybar end link and links rated for 20,000 pounds are way past overkill.

Think about it for a minute. The max vertical force on an outside front tire (assuming that the inside front tire is in the air, which does happen), is only about 1800 pounds. Some of that 1800 pounds (a lot actually) is going into the outside front spring). Some is going through the front sway bar. And yes there is a linkage ratio that you need to apply, so the amount of load in the end link is about 2x of what its contribution at the wheel is. If ALL of the load went thru the sway bar, the end links wouldn't be seeing 3500 pounds of load. You can calculate it more accurately pretty easily, figuring the amount of twist in the bar and how much motion there is in the sway bar ends, but the bottom line is that a big heavy duty end link isn't required here from a pure loading standpoint.

Impact loads will cause some beating of the joint in the end links, but the real problem is wear caused by grit getting into the end link.

Another big issue is the loads caused if the end link reaches the end of its travel and binds up. Those loads are big and are likely what beats up an end link more than any normal loads could.

I've seen a lot of end links that got loose and clunky with wear, but I've never seen one break. You can use expensive end links, and if it makes the car more quiet it could be worth it for a street car, but you aren't going to break one so if it's a track car you don't need to spend a fortune on them.

I'd probably use a forged end link because it looks good, but remember the T1 links are what we would consider crap end links. They are on stiffer bars and I've never heard of one breaking.

I'm not suggesting that you put on 1/4 inch end links, but pretty much any 1/2 inch end link will have enough load capacity to do what you are trying to do here.

Everett Ogilvie

I don't know what part of the car the OP was referring to, but my a-arms are attached to the frame with spherical bearings at every location - meaning I think about the incredibly substantial loads placed on them EVERY time I drive the car.

There is some great info on that website which got me thinking about how to lube spherical bearings, and with what. They give some lube numbers in some of the downloads at the website, but they certainly are not household names. Anyone have any experience lubing sphericals?

John Shiels

link to lubes? thanks!

Everett Ogilvie

Here is their page under "Articles" - you can download any/all of the pdf files - some really good stuff;

http://www.aurorabearing.com/technic...s/default.html

froggy47

Thanks for all the good posts guys.

For lubes, I think it depends on the design.

PTFE lined = no lube

Zerk = grease it

Metal to metal = any non oily non greasy lube that will not attract grit (lube every event)

The cheap maint free oem style are usually pre lubed & sealed with a boot.





Above are some two piece PTFE rod ends I sent back that were too loose or had a rough spot between the ball & race. Vendor was nice enough to replace & I would rather not identify. There sure is a lot to know about these often neglected bits on our cars.

John Shiels

thanks I'll check it out!

edit great reading thanks!