Wishbone to create a jig.

[alackofspeed]

Greetings all,

Sadly today on a track day, the one of two remaining OEM Marlin wishbones on my car snapped. Thankfully no injuries, just material damage - had the same thing occurred on the road it might have been a different story.

I intend to make two new front wishbones and match the other 6 wishbones on my car that are made of thicker gauge steel, and CDS rather than seamed.

What I can't recall is whether the front lower wishbones are the handed. Can anyone remember?

[bigrich]

Eek!

Not sure myself if the lower bones are handed...pretty sure they are...if you look down from above.

Where did it fail? Balljoint plate or tube failure.

Rich

[alackofspeed]

Front tube, mid-span, full circumferential failure. Not had a chance yet to look at the fracture to consider failure cause. From a casual glance the fresh surface had gingered very quickly, so postmortem might be inconclusive by CVI.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see the end of the failed tube.

The sad thing is there have been other failures of the Marlin wishbones on both 5EXI and Sportster reported on this forum, so clearly something is not right.

I suppose whether the arms are handed or not, I should be able to make a jig that'll work for both from the remaining "good" arm.

[eaa53]

I have a spare pair of UPPER arms (front and rear) and they are identical.

Looking down it appears the lower ones are also identical.

Dave Gallop would know I would guess, I was in the workshop today and Dave is very busy but sure he would have time for your enquiry.

Just a thought but Dave may have a jig already....

[limpabit]

Can't quite remember if David used mine to make my new ones. But might be a possibility, my old arms are still there with the rest of the bits

[alackofspeed]

Cheers John - I'll give Dave a ring and see what he has knocking around. I suspect he used parts from your Marlin components, such as the bush collars to make the arms on your car, be he's certainly worth asking.

Need to send my front shocks to Protech too, as I've bent a rod.