A friend of mine has a nice '70 Chevelle. The other day one of his rear lower control arms broke in two about six inches back from the front pivot point. Fortunately he was in town going around a corner very slowly. The rearend moved back far enough to let the yoke fall out of the transmission. The driveshaft may be bent. Had this happen on the highway, it could have been a real disaster. This is a first for me as I have never seen one of these break. I don't know about you guys, but I'm going over all my suspension pieces right away. I've heard of front lower arms breaking out around the lower ball joint but nothing else.

Was is a OEM control arm? Or was it aftermarket? This is the first that I have heard of a rear lower control arm breaking. Its a good thing that no one got hurt.
Take it easy
Brad :D

Was it rusted to point of weakening the metal?

I have never heard of breaking a rear arm either. :confused:

First ive heard of one breaking in that area also. I would also like to know if this was a stock arm also. It definetly could have been alot worse.

I have only seen one broken rear lower open control arm years ago on a 1968 Beaumont being parted out. :sad: Any pictures Keith?

Hey wasnt a bad control arm the cause of Bob West's crash? :cool:

I would bet it broke at one of the sway bar mounting point holes.
And the control arm wasn't boxed...

BTW...Bob West had a control arm BOLT failure.

I haven't seen the control arm yet, but I understand that it is a factory unboxed piece. The car is beautiful so I can hardly believe that the arms would be rusted out. On the other hand, when you don't know the history of a car, you never know what kind of past life it has had. Sort of like people. Everything is being replaced with beefy aftemarket stuff so he should be good to go.