SLC street tail factory hinge failure, very important warning. Please read!!!

[Hector]

I just want to make you all aware that it is not if but when the factory street tail hinge will fail, the helm joint is not long enough and it is only supported by a single nut tack welded and in tension, the top nut is not engaged at all. In order to fix it I could not find a long enough helm joint so I trimed the existing helm joint and used a coupling nut to attach it to a bolt supported by the upper nut, the bottom nut that fell off is no longer used .

I was incredibly lucky that the hinge failed while I was at my friend's house in Houston, (the rear hinge felt to the floor while I was opening it) and that it did not fail while the car was being driven, that would have been super scary and dangerous. (I was visiting my daughter prior to her graduation form Rice University) The failure caused quite a bit of paint damage when the rear clam hit the ground , but there was no structural damage to the fiberglass.

I do recommend if you have the factory hinge for the street tail that you either find a longer helm joint that will thread into the top nut or perform the modification I did. Otherwise your hinge will eventually fail. I will say it is close to a 100% chance over time.

 

[Randy V]

Beautiful car (and daughter) and glad to hear the damage was minimal.
I am curious what SL-C’s plan was for the nut on top of the frame was meant for…

 

[Kyle]

I don’t remember my car looking like that. I think my first option would have just been to weld around the nut more. Next option would be to completely change the heim to a diff size all together, McMaster has a ton of lengths.

 

[Kurt Hoffman]

Hector,

Unfortunately other builders have had this same failure. The tack welded nuts do not hold for long. I fortunately had heard of this early and cut the nuts off of mind (that sounds painful) and redid mine. It is documented in my build log and this picture shows basically what I did (the threaded rod has since been shortened to a manageable length)

I changed the eye end to a female threaded version (the stock male threaded were too short for my setup) and I adjust the horizontal clam placement with spacers/washers between the rod end and the bar. The lock nut pulls it all together.