Heads up .. Flaming River
 

Ok, guys I am doing this as a favor for a buddy of mine that is building a very nice 69' camaro, and is not tech savvy. Just to be clear I have no interest here but to make you guys aware of this situation. As a safety professional I have investigated some catastrophic failures due to inadequate steel ... and this looks likely. If Flaming River had of taken this more seriously than they have then I would not have posted this, but since they are shrugging off responsibility and not taking this seriously then it is my duty to bring this to light ...

The steering shaft knuckle that is supposed to be torqued to 14" pounds (I believe) snapped in half at 6" pounds. We all know what would happen if one of these snapped while driving ... Keep in mind my friend is a machinist and knows how to torque properly.

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:confused59: :wow: :eek:
That's why I only use Borgeson joints.

I only use GM complete steering shafts. They are made to collapse, tested and cheap. They fit most aftermarket subframes and DD steering shaft.

Ahmad,

What vehicle is that shaft from?

Andrew

I'm not a big fan of aftermarket steering stuff either for this reason. I prefer to run tried and true factory issue stuff wherever I can. Tilt columns have been a catastrophe from many suppliers too.

WOW!!! Thanks for the heads up one of my biggest fears and I have that exact same set up! I can't believe there not doing anything about this ???

I was just getting ready to post that same thing.

I agree completely.

I don't plan on buying anything from Flaming River again after dealing with a complete dickhead on the phone from their facility. They wouldn't take the time to help with a question like most of the well known manufacturers I deal with.

Seeing this just makes me laugh. Not for the safety of the people who purchased their products, but because I think Flaming River is a joke. I'll stick to buying Ididit coulums and borgeson joints.

Hey Andrew, they usually come in Astro vans and jeeps of different years. The complete steering shaft with joints is about $20 at any pick and pull compared about $200 for a complete aftermarket one that doesn't collapse.

I only use GM steering columns to. Having to deal with an aftermarket company to repair a column is a pain. Plus most of those aftermarket columns don't collapse and cost $$ if they do. I also shorten them to any length I need . I shorten them to move away from the driver in the cab or in the engine bay. Way worth the $65 and labor to get a factory column.

Less then $100 you get a complete steering set up,column to steering rack . Not bad if you ask me.

I can almost guarantee that part was made "off-shore". The issue is the quality of the steel that it is made from, regardless of the US engineering that went into designing the part. I lost the end of one finger to a "Made in China" coil spring compressor when the center exploded - just like the Flaming River part. Whenever I buy aftermarket parts that are significant, I try to ask the supplier where it is built. Some won't answer, but most are made overseas. As for GM, I just bought a "Genuine GM Parts" driveshaft carrier bearing, a set of oil cooler lines, a heater hose....etc-----"made in China, Mainland" stamped all over them. Disk brake pads -----"made in India". Truck wheel bearings ---- "made in Mexico". All of this stuff was in GM wrappers, but you can compare the stuff with the parts you are replacing and see the obvious quality differences. Not good differences! But what do you do? By the way, I use Woodward and/or Sweet steering components.

Pappy

Agreed. I have an '02 Chevy truck that had the GM steering shaft replace twice. When it was out of warranty, I replaced it with a borgeson shaft. 7 years ago. So it's borgeson American made for me.

That being said, I check all the cars regularly.

Tim

I had been reluctant to "stir the pot" but if there is safety involved then thats whats necesary. An interesting thing happened to us about 3 years ago. As we were moving a car around the shop floor, Our new FR steering shaft broke at the tilt U joint. Granted the engine was off, there was no power assist so there was more load than normal, but its something that should have never happened IMO. I was given the ol' "we have never seen that before" and figure it was an isolated incident. 3 mos later a business 3 doors down from us had the same exact thing happen! He called and was also given the " we have never seen that before" we found the production dates on the steering shafts within the same month. I havent heard of this since,so Im hoping it was isolated incidents in a very short production run, as I havent heard or experienced problems with FR anytime else, but if these parts are made with inferior materials (I have no idea) then I think its something that needs to be brought up.

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Wow the 3/4" diameter steering shaft twisted apart just from manual steering the car ? That is Holy Sh*t scary.

I say spread this news far and wide.

I've tended to stick with Woodward and Borgeson myself just out of a vague sense that they were serious on this stuff. I've put my steering system together several different ways over the years and I have always wondered in the back of my mind if everything was up to snuff or not. I started to safety wire even the little pinch nuts and set screws as well, no way I'm depending on loc tite to keep my steering in place.

After more than 15 years of use, my Borgeson joints and DD shaft with Ididit column and Ford R&P are still going strong and I trust them.

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Maybe I'm piling on, but once I tried a FR column for a 69 Camaro and sent it back, it was inferior junk IMHO.

I use IDIDIT columns and Borgeson joints so I have not seen this problem before in those. I have seen a autoloc universal fail, which is a chinese part.

I have a Flaming River column in my '69 Camaro. It desperately needs to be replaced. It has free play in it that feels like a loose tie rod end, and seems to deflect a lot when pushing the car around without power steering.

...and that is just one instance of poor quality.

thanks for the heads up.

I have a lot of experience with IDIDIT and Borgenson...never a problem.

Is Flaming River actually aware of the problem? If you need a contact there I can likely find someone there who cares.

I have to admit this made me go double check which pieces I used on TOW. I thought I used the Borgeson joints and shaft, and I was correct...

Scary!

Man this is scary! I have 3 FR joints and shafts. They are stainless wonder if those are any better?

Well Crap, I have a FR column and the dd shaft and universal joints. I bought them 5 or 6 years ago to do mock up, kind of a piss off to have to buy new parts before I even use them!:bang:

Appears they contacted and gave FR a chance to deal with it properly.

What does that mean ? I am going to go walk around the shop to see how many we have on cars in mock-up stage..I hope they plan on some sort of recall or they will get thrown WAY under the bus..This isn't the stuff you want to fail !!!

We've used a lot of FR columns and haven't had any issues.. For what that's worth. However, haven't used their joints or shafts. Borgeson all the way!

-Dale

14 lbs ft on that allen could snap that joint? crazy

We usually mark the joint on the shaft then use a drill to make a dimple the shaft for the set screw to sit in. Allen wrench tight and tighted the nut with a little blue lock tight. I never had a issue.

Now them Woodard shafts are the ones to use.

6 lbs
 

Vince ... actually it snapped at 6 lbs, it is my understanding that its supposed to be torqued to 14" lbs

Just to follow up, I will be speaking to my buddy this afternoon and will get you folks the more 'detailed' response from FR

Cheers
Steve

Hey sheck44
Did you make it down to dasilva motorsports open house last weekend...I was there first thing. had some beautiful stuff going on. Yes I know this is off topic btw

Hey guys, I try and avoid stuff like this, but just to clarify..... you keep posting 14" lbs.... that would mean inch pounds no? ' is foot, " is inch..... if it happened at 6 inch pounds there had to be something seriously compromised with that half of the joint like an underlying crack from broaching or something? Thats nuts, good thing it happened in the shop.

I don't doubt it happened, we have seen failures in almost everything over the years right? It can happen to the best of things, from our small market of parts in the hot rod world, up to parts on commercial airliners, or ignitions in mass produced cars..... I know its a safety concern, and Im not brushing off the severity of this.

M 2 cents is, we have been using Flaming river on everything and have had no issues that I can relate to the product.... Ive asked the joints to do some angles they dont like, and had some binding, but never anything like that. Looking at the billet joints,from a production standpoint I can't understand how that happened, unless it was related to the broaching process. Hopefully it gets corrected.

Inch lbs. or foot lbs.?

I have never had anything break like that from Flaming River. But I have had columns that rattle when new and racks that just die. When I made the switch to Ididit columns I felt they were just a better built column.

I had to deal with the warranty department at FR on a repair we had on a customers car built by another shop and the comment about never having seen that happen before is a common statement in the customer service industry for our world. I told him that's funny this customer has had this issue twice now on his car.

I had a ring gear in a Moser diff wear the hard facing off in like 300 miles on the Chevelle we built. And that was the easiest half throttle 300 miles so I knew we had not over done it when new. I now call when I order a diff and make sure the gear ratio I want is available in a US gear not some foreign crap. The last sales guys tried to make me feel stupid for asking him to check and I told him it has happened to me twice, it seems funny you have never heard of that issue and you might ask your sales manager "Kip" because that is how I got to know him was from this issue happening to me twice before, so if you could please check the brand of ring gear in stock. Thank you.

Sometimes these sale guys at the bigger companies seem like they just got a job down the street for their old job at Autozone or Pep Boys. It really is bad for the company as these guy are their front line with the customer.

A 5/16" allen screw should take 14 ft/lbs no problem. Hell, if you ran it in with an impact gun and broke three sockets doing it, the u joint should not have failed the way it did.

I can't figure out how that particular piece made it through the broaching process.

Agreed. X2

In school we came across "mystery" metal...came from a cheap little Chinese no name dirt bike engine. The piece cracked and we decide to use it in the lab to see what the spectro analysis was. It fell into nothing technically. The make up of the steel wasn't anywhere where it should have been. Having said that I could see the part being made with Chinese steel. Regardless of where the engineering or assembly took place. I also can see the part being hardened is there a possibility that there was a error in the hardening process therefore actually causing the part to become brittle?

Mmm
 

I have the same set up from flaming river not yet installed. Let's see if it happens :superhack:

Got a FR column in my car still in mock up...and in my Camaro...now I'm freaked out...great

Rudy and I always drop by to see my buddy Barry White (he did a lot of early work on the Nomad - and I found the Nomad via Barry 15 years ago).... and while there we started talking shop... He's telling me about MOSER... and the 3 bad ring gears he went thru in one customers build... REALLY LOW miles as in less than 500 and the gears were SHOT.

That was a "wow" to me because I always thought of them as very high quality providers...

I've had very good luck with Yukon from Randy's Ring and Pinion... Never once had a howler or a bad set... SO FAR.

I don't think you guys should even risk it. Return that junk ASAP and tell them why. :poke:

The way I understood my issue was that it was more of a Richmond Gear problem. The gears used to be made in the US and Italy. Well when they went to the where ever to have the gears made, they were not nearly as good. When we removed the gear it had just worn the hard facing off the gear.

If anyone has any questions or concerns for a part you purchased please feel free to give me a call. 440-824-2168 direct line

John
Flaming River