Broke my spindle w/PICS
 

Well I can't find any other posts about people breaking their spindles in half, so I ll post some pics.

http://i49.tinypic.com/73h1e1.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/2ag4ymw.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/29wvccn.jpg

So I got some new spindles, I am going to cut out some gussets on the waterjet this week. Also, to give more strength to the "ear" I am going to TIG the lower part of the uni ball that gets pressed into the spindle. It's way stronger than the cast spindle, so hopefully it wont happen again.

If your wheeling hard with big tires, gusset the spindle, it really blows when it breaks when your on the trail. Makes for a long day.

Wheeling happens. :hillbill:

:wabbit2:

I really hope this doesn't happen to me. Since I took a little off my spindle to clear my spring.

We're you jumping it or what?

Nope I was going up a 3 foot rock obstacle, that was still wet, and I slipped off and came down hard

Part of wheeling..

I've broken two spindle arms (one left, one right) in the EXACT same location as where you broke yours. First break was doing some serious speed on a rough dirt road and after several hard bottom-outs, BAM. Second break wasn't so cut/dry (break occured turning-around at dead-end going 3-4mph) so no clear idea the reason for the break.

My "cure" was to buy junkyard spindles and do the following:
1) Have the Total Chaos spindle gussets welded on.
2) Have the uniball pressed insert welded to the spindle. (same as your plans)
3) Installed limiting straps (overextension of suspension is supposed to put stress on the spindle arm leading to same failure as you've pictured)

Since doing the above, I have about 15K miles (about 50% of those hard offroad use) and to-date no new breakage.

Keep us posted of your progress. My opinion is that this issue (and lower balljoints) are the potential weak-links of our 3rd Gen 4Runners.... especially ones driven hard on a semi-regular basis.

Thats good to hear. Only thing I am not sure about it the limiting straps, and I am on the fence about doing them or not. I guess my uniball cup does hit the side of the receiver cup on the upppers at full droop, so it could be stressing it that way too. I suppose I should pick some up.

Did you have the uniball insert TIG or MIG welded?

I was on the fence about the limiting straps as well (mostly because I felt that most of the stress I was giving the spindle arms were due to big bottom-out hits.... and far less from hard top-out/fully drooped suspension). Reason I did the straps is that the brackets/clevis/straps/welding wasn't all that expensive and my research said that limit-straps would help with this issue. MUCH cheaper than replacing another spindle (and what a nightmare to deal with, especially if you're in middle of nowhere).

Uniball Insert welding: Honestly don't remember if they were TIG'd or MIG'd. Had done at a top quality race-prep shop so likely was TIG'd. It's such a small amount of welding that I don't see how it could be a huge cost difference to go for the TIG vs. MIG. Either way, with that insert welded, I'm sure it does wonders spreading the load out versus just allowing that thin arm to break like we've experienced.

As an aside, I also added Light Racing jounce shocks to the frontend about the same time. They help to absorb some of my big hits (and likely reduce stress on the spindle arm). Pricy, but what a HUGE difference offroad to smooth-out the big hits!

wow, welding the uniball insert to the spindle is a great idea. im for sure going to go ahead and do that.

Just want to post some pics of how I ended up fixing this. I also used limiting straps.

http://i47.tinypic.com/25z5t00.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/23lmkom.jpg

Looks great!
Please let us know if you have any future breakage with your spindles.

If I do you'll see pics posted of the whole front half of the frame cut off. And beefy parts being installed

I also have broken one right and one left spindle in that same spot, but I don't do very serious off roading so I don't know why they broke. I recently bought some TC gussets for my spindles and plan to MIG weld them on in a few weeks. I have stock lca's so I don't know where I can put limit straps but those seem like a great idea to keep my spindles from breaking.