i know u guys overpaid for those front ends but i would cut my losses and ditch them before someone gets hurt, free replacement parts wont solve that problem. put your stockers back on. when people are packing spare heilms on new front ends u know theres a major problem.
Broken Heim Joint
- Thread starter christopher
- Start date
P
pelon
Well-known member
I have Alternative Impact Titanium with 5/8 heims and no breakage in 2 seasons. Even when in I was in a nasty wreck, they still held together.
. I'm pretty disappointed that they just keep handing out band aids instead of a fix .
I guess I cut them a lot of slack, I had the chance to get upgraded a-arms and I didn't. That makes it my fault and no ones else.
Sent from my Apple iPhone 4S using the AVOW TapaTalk app.
Sent from my Apple iPhone 4S using the AVOW TapaTalk app.
Nearby sugar bowl on Saturday I flipped my nytro end over end off a 25ft cliff sled flipped 4 times before rolling,. Amazed that my new zbroz arms nor the sled for that matter didn't have one scuff from nosing into hard snow,
I thinks its a combo of the new geo and improper hardware causing issues
I thinks its a combo of the new geo and improper hardware causing issues
We rode into sugar bowl and then over to chocolate bowl yesterday. WOW, just amazing terrain. Worked my little backup nytro hard on that mountain
Sent from my Apple iPhone 4S using the AVOW TapaTalk app.
Sent from my Apple iPhone 4S using the AVOW TapaTalk app.
Christopher,
I have read and re-read this thread and your posts and cannot figure out anything about what you hit or exactly how your heim joint broke.
That said, your i-Phone worked well enough to post a thread on SW, why didn't you get a hold of Skinz directly?
I don't understand what your motive is. Like you said, anyone and everyone was offered a free upgrade to the 5/8" joints. You chose to run with the original joints and are now throwing Skinz under the bus??
For the record, I am still running the 1/2" ( yes, I must be an idiot ) but I know that an upgrade is available and if I had a failure, I would not have taken the route that you chose.
Scott
I have read and re-read this thread and your posts and cannot figure out anything about what you hit or exactly how your heim joint broke.
That said, your i-Phone worked well enough to post a thread on SW, why didn't you get a hold of Skinz directly?
I don't understand what your motive is. Like you said, anyone and everyone was offered a free upgrade to the 5/8" joints. You chose to run with the original joints and are now throwing Skinz under the bus??
For the record, I am still running the 1/2" ( yes, I must be an idiot ) but I know that an upgrade is available and if I had a failure, I would not have taken the route that you chose.
Scott
You must be reading a different thread, he didn't throw Skinz under the bus at all, he should have, but he didn't. Same old same old company x y and z are having the general public do the R and D for them, its not just Skinz. Point is, he nor anyone else should have ever been forced into making the decision of whether to tear down their sled in the middle of the season or risk the 1/2" ends. If you are selling suspension parts that steer the sled you as a vendor risk killing someone they better work the first time or you better have a good lawyer.
M5
M5
Skinz sure has some loyal customers ! Although i don't believe Chris was bashing Skinz i believe people need to know to get the 1/2 heims off of their sleds and get some solution in place before someone really does get hurt ! That wouldn't be cool if that happened !
I was there,we were riding in 18 inches of fresh snow,Chris went up a hill and as he turned his sled to the right to come down the joint broke....no impact no other damage other than the bent tie rod from the joint breaking.
He did not have Skinz phone number at the time and as he had spent two days driving to go on a sled trip that was just begining and he thought it would be best to get some help from members so he could get parts.
He did not bash them just wanted to enjoy a long planned trip and this was on the upgraded joints.....me on the other hand will stick with stock till there has been proper R&D on these front ends....
If this would of happened on the rock hard trail on the way up he would of been most surely hurt!
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J
jsandgren10
Well-known member
My cousin snapped his off riding 15mph barely touching a covered tree on the side of his ski. He had the "updated" 1/2" heims that Skinz told him would be FINE and there was no real need to go to 5/8" unless you wanted an extra sense of security. So he opted to keep the 1/2" heims and it broke right away. So yes Skinz deserves to be thrown under the bus for sending out a potentially dangerous product. They did make it right for him because we had a trip planned a week after his broke and they sent him a new set of lower arms with the 5/8" heims and then he just sent back his old ones. I do give credit that Skinz makes it right, but you can't sit there and blame the end user when they were told by Skinz the updated 1/2" heims will be fine. They should have recalled them all and made it mandatory.
In my opinion they sent a product not ready for production. There is a force on those heims that should be there to be snapping them off like they do.
In my opinion I think they have you set the heims too far in where there is no room for the heim to bend. With it screwed all the way in to where you barely have a couple of threads to tighten the lock nut seems like all it can do is fail in shear when it makes an impact rather than bending like a typical heim on a jeep rockcrawler.
Just glad Chris got some new heims so his trip wasn't a waste.
1400 miles on my SPG front end. 1 spindle, 2 subframes and it took the worst impact of my life to break one of the original heims. 40-50 mph landed a jump and hit a rock in my bombhole. Sled rebounded some 40 feet in distance and 15 feet high from the impact. Something was going to give.
where the guy is standing is where the impact was. I was able to remove the nut from the broken heim and thread it in to ride out. Skinz had me my new heims in short order and I was back on the snow. Pissed off at nothing but such a horrible impact I had taken and being lucky I was not hurt.
picture of my subframe from the rock
Picture of the stump, broken spindle, bent subframe and un broken original heim. This was in November.
where the guy is standing is where the impact was. I was able to remove the nut from the broken heim and thread it in to ride out. Skinz had me my new heims in short order and I was back on the snow. Pissed off at nothing but such a horrible impact I had taken and being lucky I was not hurt.
picture of my subframe from the rock
Picture of the stump, broken spindle, bent subframe and un broken original heim. This was in November.
Forgot to mention. Last year I took a less than 5 mph hit to my Z broz and it took out a lower A arm, upper ball joint, subframe and shock shaft. So I'll take my SPG!
T
TRUEBLUEMAX
Well-known member
I think this is true to some extent. They are not able to do a ton of testing on these things before they come to the market. One thing that I have learned being in the auto industry is that nobody can do enough testing to ensure that there will not be problems. Manufacturers do so much testing to make sure that stuff is right before it goes to production. When it really comes down to it no manufacturer can duplicate how and where people ride their stuff and what the conditions are. It is just not realistic. If someone like Skinz waited until they had enough miles on something to know there was no issue the part would be obsolete before it made it to market.
I don't think this should be blown into a huge problem either. A problem it is. It sounds like about 95% of people out there including myself are not having issues. It is however in the back of my mind sometimes.
I know M5 you have stated many times that the problem lies not in the shear strength of the smaller joint, but in the available rotational travel of the joint. I don't know if you have one of these on your sled or not but I have noticed something about mine. Every time I ride i find that the jam nut is loose on one side. I tighten the jam nut and then it is loose again. The other side never comes loose. I was very careful when I put mine together to make sure that the joint was in the middle of it's travel when i set the jam nut. I wonder if the problem some of the people are running into is that the joint is not in the center of the travel when the jam nut is set. When something is hit to where that wants to rotate and there is no rotation is available because the rotational travel is already gone it just shears off the joint. It would be much like overtightening a bolt to the point that is just snaps.
M
MTdream
Well-known member
I must be the only one set back by this, 3 posts in three minutes on a public forum asking us to serve as your messengers...versus sending a text to the vendor?
Then requesting people to navigate delivery for you??
All for an issue that the vendor provided you options to prevent?
Sorry, but terribly poor form!!!!!
Especially since you have their number and email and could have communicated with them directly....
Secondarily based on how you handled the whole transition to paying for membership here....
From a disclosure basis, I am unabashedly friends with the Hawksworth family, and find it sad with the level of bashing and whining this forum has turned into...we whine about needing new sleds, they deliver we whine about how they delivered, when they delivered, and that they delivered...we ride them, then whine that they are too this or too that....we add parts to do this or do that and then whine that it didn't do what joe internet jockey said it would...
Want bullet proof stock reliability...Yamaha NON modified....however, you will have poor handling underpowered, meadow cruiser...want more...your NOT going to get years of R&D why? Industry is moving too fast, and the industry is to small...
Then requesting people to navigate delivery for you??
All for an issue that the vendor provided you options to prevent?
Sorry, but terribly poor form!!!!!
Especially since you have their number and email and could have communicated with them directly....
Secondarily based on how you handled the whole transition to paying for membership here....
From a disclosure basis, I am unabashedly friends with the Hawksworth family, and find it sad with the level of bashing and whining this forum has turned into...we whine about needing new sleds, they deliver we whine about how they delivered, when they delivered, and that they delivered...we ride them, then whine that they are too this or too that....we add parts to do this or do that and then whine that it didn't do what joe internet jockey said it would...
Want bullet proof stock reliability...Yamaha NON modified....however, you will have poor handling underpowered, meadow cruiser...want more...your NOT going to get years of R&D why? Industry is moving too fast, and the industry is to small...
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^^^^^^^^Well said Jeremy
Can post on a forum but can't google the phone number, email for Skinz?
At least he didn't PM the entire forum list.
Can't wait for the next communique, " in main lodge, third toilet stall.... No toilet paper. Can someone please call housekeeping for me?"
(Sorry Christopher, couldn't resist-- between this and some of your on hill "decisions" last year, I'm wondering if a Darwin award is in your future?)
Can post on a forum but can't google the phone number, email for Skinz?
At least he didn't PM the entire forum list.
Can't wait for the next communique, " in main lodge, third toilet stall.... No toilet paper. Can someone please call housekeeping for me?"
(Sorry Christopher, couldn't resist-- between this and some of your on hill "decisions" last year, I'm wondering if a Darwin award is in your future?)
Added photos to the first post.
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