Chassis-stabiliser bracket failure - endemic prob?

[Jamie.]

Hi,

1994 3lt, with 40k on the clock. Noticed a stabiliser bush on the driveway a few days ago.

The chassis bracket is still bolted on, but it's been fractured by axle articulation (due to encountering a small dip, at very slow speed). This is not a particularly rough track and has one short relatively steep bend, but nothing that the average car can't pull off, on a daily basis, without falling to bits.

I thought Surf's could withstand real offroading (which this is not) and there must be a problem with this particular vehicle, but I just spoke to a dealer and he has hundreds of the brackets in stock because of the high failure rate due to the Surf's stabiliser having too little travel. He doesn't know of any modification kits available to mitigate the problem.

Not sure if it could be a factor, but it is on large Goodrich's (31 x
10.50 R15LTs). Suspected the suspension may have been raised, but apparently not -- it's just a serious design flaw.

Any advice? This Surf was a very good find, immaculate, very low millage, but looking increasingly useless for anything but town use.

[TonyN]

Way to over react dude!

Throw the anti roll bar away, it offroads better without them. You have a 11 year old car, and a component that gets stessed everytime you go round a corner or jack the car up. Its not broken cos you went down a little dip once.

They normally break the little clamps that hold the bush to the axle tube on the rear axle, not seen a front one break on the chassis yet, and its normally due to corrosion rather than bad design. Its a 30 second job to replace and it'll work for another 10 years just fine.

Hope nothing seriously goes wrong with your truck, sounds like you'd have a coronary!!



31's are standard fitment on some Surfs, thats not a big tyre.