Chassis parts are a critical part of a vehicle, leaving no room for error in the design and quality. All parts manufactured by Rare Parts will meet or exceed original equipment manufactures specifications (OEM). Some of the most critical factors in manufacturing chassis parts include proper heat-treating, using the right materials, as well as ensuring the correct taper per foot on the stud. When you choose a Rare Parts product you can leave the engineering, testing, and the quality of the parts up to us. At Rare Parts, we have original equipment drawings on file for reference. These drawings can be used to compare the dimensions and designs used by the OEM. When it comes to testing, we have cycle, tensile, fatigue, and impact testing capabilities. These prior tests, which you are able to view on this page, will provide you with enough information for you to do your own comparison between Rare Parts and OE. When it comes to chassis parts, we take life serious.
Ford T-Bird
Rare Parts Inc. strives and is proud to provide our customers with steering and suspension parts that meet or exceed OEM specifications. Rare Parts inspects and tests any steering and suspension that we manufacture. One of our past tests was on a 1961-66 Ford Thunderbird lower ball joints. Both OEM and after market designs left a lot of room for improvement. If you owned a 1961-66 Thunderbird you would be well aware of the problem. The original ball joint was under designed. Rare Parts redesigned the lower ball joint using a forged housing and a full ball stud. The problem instantly went away. Our test results are proven in the graphs below. A pull out test was performed and as you can see from comparing the two graphs, the OEM design failed at 6,500 lbs. and the Rare Parts design failed at 17,717 lbs. So whether or not your Evil Kneivl, Rare Parts ball joint will out perform OEM.
Dodge Track Bar Test
Rare Parts has designed and manufactured a new Heavy Duty Track Bar for the 1994-2002 Dodge Ram Trucks (PN RP28444). This track bar will replace the original under designed bar. Our goal during the designing process was to manufacture a part that would be far superior when compared to any other design on the market. The following tensile/pull out test will show you what loads took place during the destructive tensile test. The tensile testing machine graphs the amount of load used to pull the stud out of the housing. The original design took 17,778 lbs. to pull the stud out of the housing while the Rare Parts design failed at just about two times the OE load at 34,971 lbs. But it wasn't that easy, our first test only exceeded the original by a few hundred pounds, so we went back to the drawing board. At the drawing board, we decided to increase the cross sections and alter the heat-treating on the housing to achieve the results we were looking for. The end result was a track bar that would out live the original OE bar.
Chrysler Ball Joint Test
This popular Chrysler lower ball joint was known to fail prematurely. It was another part that was under designed from the beginning. When this lower ball joint, known as a RP10166 and RP10167, went obsolete, Rare Parts went to the drawing board. Our design began by using a larger ball stud to increase the wear surface and ended by encapsulating the larger ball stud in a low friction nylon bearing. The following tensile/pull out test shows the OE part failing at 4,000 lbs. The Rare Parts design exceeded the 4,000 lbs. pull out and failed at three times that amount at a little over 12,000 lbs. These lower ball joints were another perfect example of how Rare Parts can take an old part and redesign it with new technology.
