Cracks In Suspension Arms

Hello Jack. As your Cord has an extremely low mileage of around 12,000 as I remember I don't think you would have any cracks at all. My car has on the other hand has covered around 300,000 all up. It was very well used from new so a lot of the time it would have been on dirt roads hence the cracks. Unfortunately I have not been able to add relevant pictures to the original post.

Terry, This is a most interesting and somewhat disturbing observation you have made. It is noteworthy that Don Wohlwend of Washington State had never before been aware of this apparent defect/weakness in the front suspension arms. Panic has not yet set in but when the cold winter weather vacates Missouri I plan to crawl under Geneva ( S#32410S) and see what evidence I may see of this problem on my very late production date Cord. Thanks for your sharp eyes, Jonathan (Jack) Richards #1080.

During the current restoration of 810 1586A I discovered fine cracks in the suspension arms. Actually in the weld between the fabricated arm and the forged yoke that carries the wheel. Panic set in as I had no way of telling how deep they were. I had the welds checked by professionals using a magna flux process. The LHS arm was worse that the RHS arm. I contacted Don Wohlwend in Washington state as he had done a lot of work on Cord wheels etc. Being a retired mechanical engineer I figured his opinion would be of great value. It was as he suggested I carefully grind the welds to remove the cracks and then have them retested to see if the cracks were deeper still. I decided to bite the bullet and started to carefully grind the effected areas. The weld is not structural but only a seal really as rivets hold the forged yoke to the fabricated arm. I kept grinding until the cracks were completely removed. Slag deposits were present from the original welding process which did not help. Rust was observed under the welds in the forged yoke. I plan to grit blast the areas with fine sand before having them professionally welded. I was going to do it myself with stick welding but feel MIG welding will give a better result. Don mentioned this is the first time he has heard of cracks in this area. The Actonite Cord is know to have covered a very high mileage and I would like to do quite a few more safely.