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Another Steering Failure with Cognito Braces

I do have to agree that they do look like they put things in a bind.I thought I had installed mine wrong after looking at the finished product.I have almost 20,000 miles on mine and they have seen plenty of off road action but not abused with no problems.Im running 17 in rims and 295/70/17 toyo mt's.


Are you saying that yours only lasted 1 week?
 
If I had a kit installed, I'd take it back out tonight! That's the kind of failure that is life threatening... your's or an innocent bystander. If the latter, you not only have to live with the blood on your hands (and heart/mind) but maybe a lawsuit to boot. I realize that's a pretty harsh assessment, but it's a possibility.
JMHO
 
I agree. Considering there have been multiple instances of pitman arms shearing off with these braces installed, I'd take them off if I had them.

In another week Brandon was going to be driving across the pass in the snow.... SO glad it didn't happen at highway speeds.....
 
dentpusha said:
I do have to agree that they do look like they put things in a bind.I thought I had installed mine wrong after looking at the finished product.I have almost 20,000 miles on mine and they have seen plenty of off road action but not abused with no problems.Im running 17 in rims and 295/70/17 toyo mt's.


Are you saying that yours only lasted 1 week?
Click to expand...

They were in the truck for a week and a half. In that time I put about 150 miles on the truck. Those miles were mainly on road/highway and a few miles on logging roads.
 
MD Welding said:
Does anyone know why they are breaking or bending? I'm thinking about taking mine out.
When I installed mine it seemed like you could actually put a lot of extra stress on the joint if they are improperly installed. By tightining the 2 jam nuts on the heim joint you could pre stress it one way or the other if your not carefull.

Did anyone else notice this or am I wrong?
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I too am considering having mine removed...:mad2:

I tow 8500 to 10k and regularly and I wouldn't want to lose steering with that load...
 
I got off the phone with Chad at Cognito a little bit ago and here is a summary of what he had said.

The first thing out of his mouth was "do you have Moog arms on you truck?" I guess that they have had this same problem with mainly Moog arms. I sent him pictures of what had happened (the pics that I posted here) and he said that it looks like I had the braces installed correctly and it is not likely a problem with the braces. I asked about the recommendations about worn parts:

"If the worn parts have approximately 40,000 miles or less on them with a close to stock size tire, they probably will not have to be changed. If the worn parts have approximately 20,000 miles or less on them with larger than 33” tires, they probably will not have to be changed. If the parts have more miles than that on them, it is recommended to replace the pitman and idler arms with factory units and add the Cognito Motorsports Pitman and Idler Arm Support Kit."

His response to the recommendations was that if there was noticeable ware on either pitman or idler arm that it is advised to replace them. Mine did not show any signs of ware so I did not replace the before the install of the braces.

He asked me to send him an email with a list of things that are wrong/broken/bent and he is going to try to get me the parts needed to "get me back on the road". It sounds like that will be at a discounted price or free... but im not sure which one.
 
So what happens as your truck gets older and starts to have wear? If as it gets older and parts start to wear is it going to break again? Seems like a huge huge liabilty issue.
 
ak diesel driver said:
So what happens as your truck gets older and starts to have wear? If as it gets older and parts start to wear is it going to break again? Seems like a huge huge liabilty issue.
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That is true and I have thought about this already. Until I get an answer on why the pitman arm broke and what causes this problem I won't put them back on. I'm just lucky that I was traveling at less that 5 MPH in a parking lot when it broke.
 
No problem Bud, from what I was told you should be fine. You did what the recommend in their instructions. The only reason why I didn't replace my pitman and idler arms is that they had no signs of ware... and I was going to replace them when I do a transmission service, oil change, diff fluids, etc later on towards summer when I had the money. I planned to do everything all at once.
 
Here is the link to the first failure which happened to Schutle (Mike).

http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/showthread.php?t=13567

The conditions in which this happened are very similar. Both drivers were turning. If you compare the break pattern of the parts from each failure they resemble each other. This is quite scary to say the least. I know if I had a set I would be under there trying to figure it out or removing the brace until someone finds the cause of the failure.
 
I found Schulte's thread 5 mins after mine broke. The breaks look similar with one main difference, mine has discoloration at the point of breaking. This leads me to thing the is wasn't an instant shear, more of a fatigue then a shear (it happened over a longer period of time compared to Schulte's break)
 
07HDClassic said:
I found Schulte's thread 5 mins after mine broke. The breaks look similar with one main difference, mine has discoloration at the point of breaking. This leads me to thing the is wasn't an instant shear, more of a fatigue then a shear (it happened over a longer period of time compared to Schulte's break)
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Brandon, from your pics, I'd say yours was a sudden failure as Mike's appeared to be. The discoloration looks to just be from the heat treating process.
I still would remove the brace kit if it was on my truck.
 
To give everyone an update... My truck is back on the road!

I received a new GM pitman arm from mreeves23 on Diesel Place yesterday in the mail. Today, my dad, Devin (83gmck2500), and I put the truck back together. We installed the new pitman arm on the steering box, put the steering box in the truck, and hooked everything back up. After the box was in, we checked all the bolts and fittings for being tight and then started the truck up to check for leaks. No leaks and time for a test drive... everything is back to working condition.

I left the idler arm brace in the truck because there was no damage to it, but that pitman arm brace was beyond saving... so it's in a box of broken truck pats with my mangled tie rod now.

In the next couple days I'm going to have a friend take my pitman arm to a Material Science Engineer on campus to see what may have caused this problem. When I get the results I'll post what he said.
 
Looking forward to the failure analysis. I didn't realize you had that option at school. Analysis is expensive even if it's just microstructure.
 
btfarm said:
Looking forward to the failure analysis. I didn't realize you had that option at school. Analysis is expensive even if it's just microstructure.
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A good friend of mine knows a few MSE professors and students at WSU. We were going to see if them would at least look at the pitman arm to get their opinion on what happened or possibly have them run some tests if they would.
 
Just wanted to post the pics of the good and not so good (pitman arms that is) of this morning
 

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It was good to see the grey beast pull into the driveway today. It's been off the road for far too long this semester.
 
88gmctruck said:
It was good to see the grey beast pull into the driveway today. It's been off the road for far too long this semester.
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Its been done for about a month an a half total since school started in late august. First the vane position sensor then the pitman arm. I hope thats all for the year.

And I hope you are enjoying the full tank of gas I left you in the yellow truck.... Thanks for letting me use it
 
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