Well after 3 months of waiting on shipping BMR has discontinued their Watts Link. What does everyone recomend for a Watts Link setup?
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Whiteline has stopped selling theirs and I’m assuming this is why. I know I’m on borrowed time with mine - Cortex will be going on before too long.I have the Whiteline on mine. The "propeller" failed on mine this year. This was the fifth season of autocross on it. A weld broke on one of the pivots that the links attach to, the other pivot also has the welds failing. The new part is no better. Going to rebuild the one that failed with a slight design change to get a better weld on it.
I would look at the Cortex, easy to add the torque arm if you want to try that.View attachment 80186
single shear , yikes.I have the Whiteline on mine. The "propeller" failed on mine this year. This was the fifth season of autocross on it. A weld broke on one of the pivots that the links attach to, the other pivot also has the welds failing. The new part is no better. Going to rebuild the one that failed with a slight design change to get a better weld on it.
I would look at the Cortex, easy to add the torque arm if you want to try that.View attachment 80186
I did look at the idea of modifying it to a double shear design but I'm going to rebuild the prop first with a minor redesign for attaching the link lugs to the prop. While single shear is not ideal the main issue with failure is a poorly designed part that has nearly no room for a decent weld and then most of the weld is ground off. I'm confident with a minor change it will be fine to hold the back end in check.single shear , yikes.
That "sleeve" piece, if that was machined as one unit with a nice size flange that could be welded from the backside, that would be ideal. Is clearance an issue on the backside of the pivot?I did look at the idea of modifying it to a double shear design but I'm going to rebuild the prop first with a minor redesign for attaching the link lugs to the prop. While single shear is not ideal the main issue with failure is a poorly designed part that has nearly no room for a decent weld and then most of the weld is ground off. I'm confident with a minor change it will be fine to hold the back end in check.
The lug that pulled off is drilled all the way thru and tapped all the way thru, doesn't need to be, bolt doesn't need to be very long to retain the link. There was no bevel on the backside of the whole to get deeper penetration into the prop. The other thing I will check is the clearance on the backside, may be able to extend the lug a bit to get a better weld so the load is spread over a larger area. I think they were relying on a tight fit between the lug and the prop and the should on the lug. There is next to nothing for a weld on the backside after the weld was ground flush and there isn't a lot of material left in the lug after the hole has been drilled thru and tapped. Time to get the lathe out and whip up a fix.
Luckily the 295/40-18's kept the axle in place, some what, the fender lines were the only casualties. Did you know that smoked fender liners smells almost like axle grease burning on hot brakes?
The clearance on the backside is an issue but I have to do some measuring to see how much there is, there may be enough to get some additional material support. I have an idea also to go to a double shear setup using rod ends vs the bushed ends on the propeller. Then I'm looking at putting the prop pivot into a double shear also. There just isn't much room back there. Other thought is that Kenny Brown thing but that may interfere with my sway bar. You sure can burn thru some cash with these toys.That "sleeve" piece, if that was machined as one unit with a nice size flange that could be welded from the backside, that would be ideal. Is clearance an issue on the backside of the pivot?
That is one of my concerns with this setup, I have been checking the center pivot bolt to make sure it isn't bent or loose. This failure looks to me like a bad design that someone should have caught.This is one of the issues with a watts, for cars that are as heavy as ours, and then add curb jumping, the roughness of tracks and the dynamic loading, you are really asking a lot out of the diff cover and that center bolt arrangement, I'm not sure that is something that can be overcome, it's almost as if you fix one area, then you break the next piece in line. This is one of the reasons these things have never really caught on in competition cars.