broke a strut rod!! (72 hornet)

wow, freaky... josh drove over a minor pothole (i drove by it, it's 3" deep), huge >KLUNK<, front passenger side wheel went wogga-wogga... long story short, the strut rod broke clean across, right in front of the front-most bushing retainer nut. no sign of obvious prior damage; no gouge, abrasion, scraping from jacks or tools, etc, in the area around the break. also the break itself is clean all the way across -- i had an axle break once, looked like a fingernail -- one small crescent of shiny metal, the rest dull grey, eg. an old fracture that worked across and let go all at once. this shows no evidence of *anything*, it just seems to have... parted.

front end work was recently done -- new bushings installed -- which immediately makes me suspicious, but the shop is top-notch, knows AMCs, did things right, etc.

all we can figure is that it was stressed long ago, from an accident, car jacked up on it, etc then broke when whacked, either "just right" or timing. (could have been a lot worse, eg. on the freeway).

anyone see this before?

anyone know where we can find one? 72 Hornet 6cyl? they never need replacing so no one's got them laying about. it's a daily driver and out of commission til we find a part, if you've got one i'll pay for expedited shipping.

The strut rod is exactly the same one used from 1971 through to end of production on the 2 whd cars except for Pacer  and are interchangeable side to side.
I have one, do you want it?

CORRECTION.
They are not interchangeable side to side. Forgot that sitting two floors above the garage. 



Edited by uncljohn - Jul/24/2014 at 11:22am

The Eagle ones may even be the same. They lowered the brackets on the frame a couple inches for the lift.

tomj wrote: all we can figure is that it was stressed long ago, from an accident, car jacked up on it, etc then broke when whacked, either "just right" or timing. (could have been a lot worse, eg. on the freeway). anyone see this before? anyone know where we can find one? 72 Hornet 6cyl? they never need replacing so no one's got them laying about. it's a daily driver and out of commission til we find a part, if you've got one i'll pay for expedited shipping.

Edited by THE MENACE - Jul/25/2014 at 4:07pm

It's 45 years old and been a lot of miles and goes through monkey motion when the suspension moves, takes all the shock of hitting pot holes and stopping the car from any kind of speed and pretends it is a pivot point.
I'n surprised more of them have not broken.
But they haven't they are roughly 3/4 in thick where the thread starts.  There is no finesse to the part it is crude and brutal.
But for the most part, it gets the job done.