Trailing Arm Bolts (again)

["Toby Peterson" <tobyp@xxxx>]

Hello List - I wanted to toss a quick note out regarding a car that 
was recently purchased by a PNDC member here in the Seattle area. The 
car was standing at a repair shop with a completely fractured TAB, and 
the threaded half was completely missing (including the nut, shims, 
and large flat washers. The new owner bought the car, and brought it 
home on a dolly. I swapped out the broken bolt with a new TOBY-TAB 
(of course!), and also changed the other bolt. The "non-fractured" 
bolt was substantially bent, with several areas of galling wear and 
corrosion pitting. The car came with complete records since new (it 
was a one-owner car), and the TAB's had been changed with OEM bolts at 
least once, and inspected and retorqued several times. The car had 
about 52K miles on it. The passenger side (where the fractured bolt 
was) trailing arm rubber bushing retention plate was bent, and the 
bushing was somewhat deformed, indicating that the bolt had been 
broken before, in a violent fashion, resulting in the damage to the 
adjacent hardware. As I look at my remaining stock of TOBY-TAB's, I 
just thought you'd like to know!

Toby Peterson VIN 2248
Winged1