TheSamba.com :: View topic

Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:45 am

Hey guys. I was wanting some feed back on the latest rage combo spindles. I read some old post about them but they weee really old. I know you get what you pay for so maybe i just answered my question . Are they holding up and breaking and any other info would be great. I'm running 33/10.5/15 tires. Thanks

Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:36 pm

I have a set of the 3" lift spindles machined for heims. I have 135 race miles on them, about 50 test miles, and probably 100 highway miles. I have had zero issues so far.

I tried to buy the standard height spindles at first but they were on factory back order at the time I needed them, so ended up with the lift spindles instead because Appletree had them in stock. I didn't need the lift spindle but I'm happy now that that's what I got because it keeps the front end out of all the big holes and 2 track berms that the unlimited cars create. Last race I did not hit the skid plate the entire 135 miles.

Note that the lift spindles have 2-3* of negative camber built into them to help with turning. It does make a difference in that aspect but it will have camber and there is no way to adjust what is built into them. Keep that in mind.

I have a 200 mile race this weekend, I will let you know how they hold up.

Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:16 pm

Ok cool thanks man!!

Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:42 pm

We are running them on our car and so far so good. We are also running 33x10.50's in front. The car was built as a dual-sport and has about 6200 miles on it. 2500 dirt miles about 500 being pretty hard preruning, 1700 around town and about 2k delivering Pizza. The combo's are showing very slight wear but I'm told that they are not rebuildable. Food for thought. If you plan to play hard I would not recommend their arms, our bent really bad and when I pulled them out all four had cracks all the way around.

Thu Nov 30, 2017 9:31 pm

Quote: If you plan to play hard I would not recommend their arms, our bent really bad and when I pulled them out all four had cracks all the way around.
1fastbigguy hello what arms did you go to I broke a Latest Rage 2x1 arm on there combo spindles. It broke mid arm [ defect ?] Thankfully it was when I was just putzing around and not tearing it up or the out come may have been worse. Thank You
Terry

Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:02 pm

terryly wrote: Quote: If you plan to play hard I would not recommend their arms, our bent really bad and when I pulled them out all four had cracks all the way around.
1fastbigguy hello what arms did you go to I broke a Latest Rage 2x1 arm on there combo spindles. It broke mid arm [ defect ?] Thankfully it was when I was just putzing around and not tearing it up or the out come may have been worse. Thank You
Terry

Hey Terry,

I went with Woods arms and rebushed the combo's for 7/8 link pins.

The Woods arm is on the right... much stouter! All four of the other arms were cracked where the tube meets the cast material. I got lucky that they bent before breaking!

Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:40 pm

do you just get the 7/8 bushing no mod to the spindle ?

Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:27 pm

Thanks 1fastbigguy found your father son thread. You went a little more HD than i need can justify. I think I will get the Woods arms in 5/8 Nice they have the correct upper arm offset for shimming.
Terry

Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:35 am

just put another 200 race miles on mine with zero issues and no complaints.

Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:01 pm

1fastbigguy wrote:

The Woods arm is on the right... much stouter! All four of the other arms were cracked where the tube meets the cast material. I got lucky that they bent before breaking!

I just want to point out a small typo there that I want to correct because such that many people would call little things turn into big things later as the mis-information gets spread.

That arm on the left is not a "cast " arm. The wide seam on it shows that the arm is forged. A cast arm would have a little skinny seam where the 2 halves of the mold separate. Cast steel or iron is FAR weaker than forged steel.

Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:19 pm

Anyone had to rebuild their latest rage spindles yet??

Tue Mar 26, 2019 4:49 pm

terryly wrote: Thanks 1fastbigguy found your father son thread. You went a little more HD than i need can justify. I think I will get the Woods arms in 5/8 Nice they have the correct upper arm offset for shimming.
Terry

This is halarious seeing as stock arms are offset as well.

Sun Mar 31, 2019 12:25 am

But accurate in that some Chinese made arms are NOT made that way. Some provide the same arms for upper and lower, which is NOT right. So that's why the ad makes a point of that.

Tue Apr 09, 2019 1:56 pm

Vanillagurilla wrote: terryly wrote: Thanks 1fastbigguy found your father son thread. You went a little more HD than i need can justify. I think I will get the Woods arms in 5/8 Nice they have the correct upper arm offset for shimming.
Terry

This is halarious seeing as stock arms are offset as well.

Yea it doesn't matter if they are offset or not. Making them offset just eliminates some shims.

Mon Sep 23, 2019 5:05 pm

I put my new Latest Rage spindles together and didn't like several things. First, there is no grease seal on the king pin bearing and grease leaks from here before getting to the link pin bushing. Also the built in camber is so severe I had to put 7 shims between the trailing arm and spindle on top just to make it have "some" positive camber. I could not find anything bent on my front end, but the way it sits now I'm not really happy because I have to tighten down the lower link pin more than I want to maintain an acceptable camber. Are these spindles supposed to be used with non off set trailing arms?

Mon Sep 23, 2019 5:23 pm

Mine worked great! What arms you have? That usually normal to have the shims on bottom.
Do NOT ever ever ever use shims to set camber! Camber is built into the spindle.

Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:13 pm

I have Tweed trailing arms and had the whole front end dismantled. I inspected everything and nothing looked tweeked and it all fit together nicely. I had close to the same gap between the upper trailing arm and my straight edge (@6mm) and used the recommended number of shims top and bottom. When I put the tires on it looked like this ( / = \ ). I remeasured everything, had the car level and used a bubble gauge to re set the shims. I believe the spindles are machined wrong and the only way to correct the angle was shimming it. Of course, when you attempt to tighten the link pins down it begins to bind. The Tweed spindles weren't shimmed at all when I got the car and I corrected that, however they were already worn and I planned on rebuilding them. When I discovered that I'd have to have a machine shop fabricate the bushings I decided to buy the LR stuff. So far it's been a comedy of errors trying to get them to work right...

Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:25 pm

You're tires are supposed to look like this / \
I'm not sure what the problem is?

Start with no shims on the bottom and one on the top. Snug the top link pin up. There will now be a gap in the bottom between your arm and the king pin. Start fitting some shims in the side to see how many you're going to need to fill the gap. Never force your chamber settings. It will bind and everything will wear out in less than a mile.

Lemme know if you're not following I'll try to post some pics.
But seriously if it's binding, stop. Theres nothing machined wrong. It's just being assembled wrong.

Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:41 pm

following!!

Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:10 pm

gilmarlin wrote: I have Tweed trailing arms and had the whole front end dismantled. I inspected everything and nothing looked tweeked and it all fit together nicely. I had close to the same gap between the upper trailing arm and my straight edge (@6mm) and used the recommended number of shims top and bottom. When I put the tires on it looked like this ( / = \ ). I remeasured everything, had the car level and used a bubble gauge to re set the shims. I believe the spindles are machined wrong and the only way to correct the angle was shimming it. Of course, when you attempt to tighten the link pins down it begins to bind. The Tweed spindles weren't shimmed at all when I got the car and I corrected that, however they were already worn and I planned on rebuilding them. When I discovered that I'd have to have a machine shop fabricate the bushings I decided to buy the LR stuff. So far it's been a comedy of errors trying to get them to work right...
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/1718078.jpg

Looks like the guy running these spindles in the photo above has similar camber to you.

Since you have checked the offset on your trailing arms and it looks right, you should be able to check the spindle itself to determine exactly how much camber is built into it.