Broken Radius Arm

[77ford]

I've got an 89 Bronco II with explorer running gear. I took it to SMORR this weekend and broke the driver side radius arm (lower connection to the 35). Lucky for me it rolled the front end and popped the drive shaft so I found it pretty quick and was able to limp it back to the trailer.

My question is this, is this a common failure for the stock radius arm? I know rock crawling is very hard on everything and failures happen but if it something that is going to break every 4 or 5 trips out (that's how long I've owned it) I'd rather replace it with something after market. If it's a fluke of a break then I'll fix it back and wait till I have the time to make some extended length arms and dump the 4" drop radius arm back mounts.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[brinker88]

Those arms were not designed for that kind of abuse. As they get older, they get weaker, rust out, or in you case, snap.

If i were you, I'd get a set of extended radius arms from James Duff. I dont know if you're lifted or not, but they work with only 2" of lift in the front

 

[4x4junkie]

I've been running my stock arms for well over 6 years now and never had an issue... Been over California's 33-mile Dusy-Ershim trail twice, Rubicon, Swamp Lake, and lots more like those (I extended them with some DOM tube, however the axle mounting ears I never did anything to reinforce them, as they seemed beefy enough in that area already).

I would say fluke (or maybe one of your axle bolts was loose? After awhile the axle rocking back & forth in there can fatigue an arm).

 

[77ford]

Thanks for the replies, you split it 50/50 so I still don't know LOL....

I'll just have to see how much time I've got to fix it , I picked up a dana 44 and 9" with 629 gear so might just have to do my SAS swap now.