Does anyone have any experience with this? I've done it with a rosebud torch and heated to red hot and moved the steering arm around a bit, but it got us to thinking if we were fundamentally wrong to do it. They are cast steel, not cast iron, and when I'm done I bead blast them (after they cool off) then I magnaflux them. About every 7-8 spindles I get one that fails inspection. Just curious if anyone else does this. If they are bent so that the upper and lower ball joint don't line up, they're junk anyway. Your thoughts?
Repair Bent Stock Metric Spindles
- Thread starter Joe11
- Start date
Ratzso
Veteran
One of the main advantages of the forging process is that the internal grain structure aligns itself with the shape of the part. This ads significant increased strength to the part.
The heating of the part does not likely by itself have any negative effect on the part, but the physical straightening may put a twist or shift in the original grain structure that may or may not show up in the magnaflux check and could cause issues when the spindle is under extreme loading.
I think to answer your question, there is a potential risk of failure with a straightened spindle. How high that risk is depends on so many variables - original alloy of the part, how badly it was bent, etcetera, etcetera, that it's impossible to assign a percentage to it.
Hope this helps....
Rock On in the Free World,
Ratzso
The heating of the part does not likely by itself have any negative effect on the part, but the physical straightening may put a twist or shift in the original grain structure that may or may not show up in the magnaflux check and could cause issues when the spindle is under extreme loading.
I think to answer your question, there is a potential risk of failure with a straightened spindle. How high that risk is depends on so many variables - original alloy of the part, how badly it was bent, etcetera, etcetera, that it's impossible to assign a percentage to it.
Hope this helps....
Rock On in the Free World,
Ratzso