Just been out for a quick drive to Maplins (bloody alarm fob ) - and noticed some heavy clunking from the front right wheel area

Got home - started to check for loose nuts and bolts and then spotted this...



This is a HUGE worry - the consequences of a wishbone coming free are unthinkable

PLEASE - check yours (or have them checked)

My wishbones are maybe three years old - they had polyeurethane bushes fitted to brand new wishbones.

I think your just cursed Nigel

Any nuts dangerous thing that can go wrong with a coupe, your trailblazing ahead and finding them all for us!

forget Je suis un Coupé we should call you "test pilot"

bloody hell Nigel....

that’s worrying! Will you ever have any good luck?

i guess this is the consequence of having a mental daily drive which is set up for TOTB ect....

saying that while having a fag break while working on mine i started going over every bolt in my eye line and found so many lose bolts...the worst was the turbo flange nuts... they where VERY lose...
at least ive found the reason why its been getting slower!!

every one... check your nuts!!

Mine's just started clunking from the front.

The wishbones were done 2 years/20k miles ago.

Now I'm worried

Locknuts and threadlocker Nigel

I took your advice marco....but then got escorted out of toys are us....

were they Fiat supplied wishbones?

Nobby - its nothing to do with the wishbone mounting bolts - look at the photos again - no amount of threadlock would prevent what has happened

Gunzi - yes - Fiat OE

Bloody hell, has that sheared completely? (Photo 2 shows it best, look just above the nut and then look behind it....)

I don't know about unlucky, that was lucky you found it.... Luck is on the change me thinks. Consequences of that at speed don't bear thinking about.

Is that is a clean sheer off of the wishbone bushing bracket??
Is that the lower strut brace bolted on below??

Would there be "excess" force on this area (specifically the bracket) from application of the lower strut brace??

How were the old bushes removed Nigel, burnt out or drilled out ?

Burning them out could be a danger and it will put the metal through a heat cycle or two making them brittle !

Ah, actually !!

Are these the wishbones you have had the subframe brace wound out on, giving you the extra negative camber ?

Mmmm... Bingo??

My thought too - though the brace shouldn't have any sideways load on the wishbone, it might be transferring extra stress cycles and flexing that carrier.

Jimbo

No - I used to put some extra force into the wishbones, but that was before I had camber bolts - I now just use the adjuster to take up the slack - I don't put any force into it at all. The new wishbones were fitted since the latest design brace was fitted

Besides, even if I did, it would be no worse than running a bit of excessive toe-out

I'm pretty sure we extracted the old rubber the hard way - by scraping and drilling it out - we certainly didn't burn it out.

The only thing I can think of is that the poly-bushes WILL be transmitting more shocks to the metal carriers

I'm no metallurgist, but that's a classic fatigue crack...

What's the other side like Nigel? Maybe its a manufacturing defect?

I've got a set of poly bushed wishbones in the garage that had been on the car nearly two years with some stiff dampers, I'll check those, mind you, they will have only done about 10K miles in that time !

How old are the bush housings compared to the arms?

When the new poly bushes were fitted to the wishbone,did you use the new bush housings off the new arm or did you use the old bush housings that were already cleaned up?

Baz

we used older bush housings - not sure how old they were

I'll be getting Paul at Motormech to have a VERY close look at the other side as well

Hopefully it's a case of old metal parts put under extra stress then Nigel. Who knows the life of those metal bush carriers, it's always the bush that fails first that usually ends up with a complete wishbone change.

I had the same thing happen to mine in may this year, slight clunking noise from n/s/f, but on way to Devon (on hols) noticed car would change lanes by itself when braking and accelerating. I stopped at the services but couldn't find anything.
When i got to devon and jacked it up to have a better look i saw the front bush totally snapped away like Nigels. My wishbone had only been on just over a year.
It seems to snap just before the weld, i had to fit a new arm on the floor outside the caravan park
I changed my o/s one the week after just incase had no problems since.

Ash

I found one of my wishbone bolts had disappeared a few weeks back, was quite concerned when I noticed it so have decided to make a point of checking all of these major bits at least twice a year....

Ash, were the wishbones that snapped genuine fiat or aftermarket parts ?

I've Always thought that with striving to seek greater stiffness within the chassis that the stressing of standard parts which are often over 10years old is asking way too much of what even a new part could cope with let alone 10years old.

Nigel, although you may not be currently "pre-loading" the lower brace, it's location and constant opposition to forces acting on the wheels over such vast mileage you cover on a weekly basis has to be considered. The weakest point will always sheer under excess stress.

Perhaps a custom wishbone mount is in order to acompany the lower brace??

Is it a bolt into a back welded nut on the mount??
I'd suggest obviously Loctite or even longer bolts with split pins... At least the bolt wouldn't vanish...

Jimbo these are aftermarket arms (found out later it was incorrectly supplied, it was a alfa 146/7 arm (fits coupe but isn't quite as sturdy). When i got the correct arm it was alot thicker plating, so i got the same for the other side and no problems since. Car seems alot happier to turn in on the new arms too (tracking was done on other arms and after fitting too)

Ash

Joe flagged up some wear in mine when he performed heart surgery. I can also feel slight lift on the droplinks.