Spindels?

72bluNblu said
No I get using a fabricated steering arm and removing the ball joint from the steering arm.

But I still do not see the reason to weld that to the knuckle. Obviously you’re going to have to fabricate the steering arm regardless. But welding that to the spindle will not have a strength advantage vs bolting it to the spindle. And actually dropping the box section for what’s basically just angle is going to be a strength issue itself with that long of a steering arm, the connection to the spindle will need to be beefy if you want it to live.

And why does using rod ends require a fabricated spindle? It would work exactly the same way with the rod end whether it’s bolted on or welded.

That’s also a ton of work to use a 9” spindle. I would think using a spindle with larger bearings would be advantageous with the high speeds involved.

I'm planning to shorten the arm a bit more, bringing the total length to 8 inches. With all the boxing in, I don’t foresee any potential for failure. I’ve also explored the idea of creating my own custom lower ball joint mount from scratch, designed to accept a properly tapered, threaded ball joint. One thing I've learned about Mopar is that while the design is great, many choices were made to reduce original production costs and make parts applicable across multiple platforms. For this reason, I prefer not to introduce heat to the ball joint casting by welding on it, as it seems to be cheaply made. The final design will be fully boxed in, similar to the one in the picture, with small sections welded to connect the webbing, making the arm a single piece.

The advantage of using heims in a fabricated design is that if you run a smooth OD bolt into a taper, you only have a small contact patch, which puts all the clamping and transitional force on the bolt—a potential point of failure. vs the continual contact patch in the fabricated arm.

As for the 9-inch spindle, I switched from the '73 and later disc brakes years ago in favor of these spindles. They're lighter and can be further milled to reduce weight. Aftermarket brake kits for drum spindles are also lighter. Bearings aren’t a concern, as we use the same series of ceramic bearings found in top fuel and funny cars, which are even smaller than ours.