Almost bought the farm tonight!!!

first off, glad you made it out of a super bad situation unharmed

i hate stuff made i china as well, i cant believe they made that out of cast instead of forged

maddog said:

As I was reading this I was thinking "It was made in China"
China is gonna kill us all eventually if we dont change our buying ways.
I absolutely hate things made in china ( and yes I have some)

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after spending 20 years in the manufacturing trade, and seeing the attitude that some(not all but most) of the younger people joining the work force, it just gets tougher to find good workers that care about the parts they make, thats why everything is being sent over seas to be manufactured, they can get it made at less than half the money, and the chinese are dedicated workers, they are willing to work harder and longer for much less the money

" China is gonna kill us all eventually if we dont change our buying ways "

its not the buying ways we have to change, its our working ways, very few take pride in what they do, but they want more money to do it, that will be the downfall of this great nation we call home

again that wasnt directed towards any person here, as i know most that build their own cars take great pride in the work they do

its the lazy kids that want to start at the top instead of at the bottom

i hope that made sence, im bad at writing and getting the point across

Ron

Thanks guys for the concern. I just got off the phone with Speedway. Tim in Customer Service was great and very concerned. Asked for pictures of the part and the car, and is issuing a call tag for the two arms to be sent back for their evaluation. He says they have sold 200 almost of these already and no other problems have been reported.

In the meantime, I am going to win the one on Ebay and put an original forged one on it. I will have to cut some new spines, and it won't be chrome, but at least I can trust it.

Don

Wow,I must of missed this thread.Don,Its a good thing it happened the way it did.If that was on the freeway it could have been a real disaster for the driver and the car.Not to mention the cars around it.Glad to see that no one got hurt.China has slowly been taking over in the metal market for some time.I actually seen the rust in one of the very first pics when I seen it broken.That thing was already bad before you even got it.

luckyfasteddie said:

Thanks for the heads up Don, this needs some good follow up. It will be very interesting to see how Speedway responds. From China we expect some indeference and stuff not up to par , but Speedway ? well we will see wont we. Follow the money.LFE

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I would put money on it that the arm was in fact from China, and likely has lead in the casting mix making it softer. It would be interesting to have a metalergical study done on that part to find out what's in it. I am finding out there are a lot of buillets and ruff castings coming in from china and being machined here. Mostly all junk.

Very glad to hear that nothing happened to you Don. You definately have an angle riding with you.

Holy crap Don! You are one lucky guy! I had a simlilar situation. I must have either not tightened my steering rod where it attached to the column or something cuz the key for the keeyway fell out as I was just getting back from a rather spirited run down the highway, and all of sudden. NO steering! I was going like five miles an hour but if this happened going down the road like I was at 70mph, I would have been dead, dead dead... I have since tightened and tack welded into placed. Glad you're okay Don!

Thanks guys. Someone was watching out for me for sure. I think I'll go to church on Christmas eve this year.
I know one thing, Don isn't driving it again until we fix the problem 100 percent.

Don

metalmaster1766 said:

...after spending 20 years in the manufacturing trade, and seeing the attitude that some(not all but most) of the younger people joining the work force, it just gets tougher to find good workers that care about the parts they make, thats why everything is being sent over seas to be manufactured, they can get it made at less than half the money, and the chinese are dedicated workers, they are willing to work harder and longer for much less the money

" China is gonna kill us all eventually if we dont change our buying ways "

its not the buying ways we have to change, its our working ways, very few take pride in what they do, but they want more money to do it, that will be the downfall of this great nation we call home

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Was the broken part made in the USA ?


When the purchase price is the only consideration,
sooner or later,quality will be sacrificed.

Oh man, that's one scarey scenario. Glad your OK. If Speedway was smart, they would do a recall of all those pitman arms sold already. Better safe then sorry.

Damn don that is really a tough situation! Im real glad you or don were not hurt! I hope speedway is gonna do you right and give you some real good compensation for almost killing you!

After I posted this on the National T Bucket Alliance forum, another member posted this reply:

My pitman arm is from Total as well. After reading that your's snapped, I decided to take a closer look at mine. I used an extra-fine sandpaper disc to clean it up a bit. I not only found a lot of small holes at the top of the arm, but also a small hairline crack at the same spot where yours broke !
So glad you're ok, Don ! Thanks for the warning.



I don't think this will become something like Watergate, but it looks like others using the same arm should be careful. Speedway sent me an email too, and they are making this a priority Monday when they are at work full time he tells me.

I hope these are just isolated cases.

Don

You know if somebody else has one that is cracked like yours, then there are lots of them out there already. You may be able to save someone alot more of a scare then you had, ( or worse). Speedway and Total, should both be looking into each sale they had. This is a pretty serious deal.

Hey Don,
Do you have the PN# for that arm ? I would like too double check mine before I toss it..

Thanks

donsrods said:

Thanks guys for the concern. I just got off the phone with Speedway. Tim in Customer Service was great and very concerned. Asked for pictures of the part and the car, and is issuing a call tag for the two arms to be sent back for their evaluation. He says they have sold 200 almost of these already and no other problems have been reported.

In the meantime, I am going to win the one on Ebay and put an original forged one on it. I will have to cut some new spines, and it won't be chrome, but at least I can trust it.

Don

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Don when you send them the broken /defective part your evidence will be in their hands. Maby your state consumer affairs person ought to see it first and your lawyer second Document everything who knows where this could go.LFE

Glad you found it in time Don. I have broken cast parts just
torqueing them down. I am disappointed in Speedway for not
evaluating life dependent parts before making them available no matter who the supplier is.

Onequick26 said:

Hey Don,
Do you have the PN# for that arm ? I would like too double check mine before I toss it..

Thanks

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Here is the part number from the Speedway site:

7022930-CHR
Corvair Pitman Arm, Chrome
EA $84.99

LFE: I thought the same thing about giving up the broken arm to them, but I am not really looking for anything from them aside from credit for 2 x $ 85.00 for the two arms I am sending back. I'm not going to hold their feet to the fire in any way, I think Speedway legitimately tries to do the right thing, but like any big company is bound to have one or two issues that crop up.

They seem willing to really take a look at these arms, Tim from there was very apologetic and concerned. I have the impression they are going to make a sincere effort to find out if these are good items or not, and won't just sweep it under the carpet.

This arm has been around for a while in Total Performance's inventory, so I am sure they have sold a bunch of them over the years. Whether or not they have changed suppliers is something I do not know. I think if they would have had this happen before they would have been on top of it, at least I like to think that.

The disturbing part of this is that my Son didn't go cheap on any aspect of this T. Every part is either brand new or totally rebuilt, and his stack of receipts reflect that. If we had cut corners or made some shoddy pieces it would have been another issue, but we did not.

Don

Thank God Don that you are alright, Glad everything turned out. PHEWWWWWWWWW

Jim

Don, it almost seems like a blessing now that your son's T bent a valve on the way to Daytona and had to be towed back. Chances are good that the pitman arm could have snapped while he driving on the highway at speed sometime during TRR. That could have been disasterous.

Wow, this post has made its way to the HAMB. Funny, some on there didn't want to use the link because it would require registering on a rat site to view the photos.......LOL

Glad you are OK, Don. I'm sure that was a real scary situation.Also, glad to hear that it seems like Speedway is taking this seriously. Keep us posted.

Thanks for the # Don.