Quote: I personally think using the steering adapter as an example is a bad one, as that part, although very important of course, is hardly stressed at all during operation. I could imagine an LCA strut could be stressed higher. How much force does this adapter actually see from our hands?
A man needs to know his limitations...
Wow, that's kind of harsh,
Having high load and high stress are different things. If a part see high load it does not mean it has high internal stress level. These OEM LCA are over designed, never read any report of failure on any forum. By welding gussets at the end of the stiffening flanges I reduce even more the stress level in the part and if half of my welding is bad I still have a stronger part.
The steering adapter is small and round, more prone for rapid crack propagation. My weld would be the only one taking all the load in shear. If half of my welding is bad, it could take only one hard hit on the road to have a catastrophic failure.
I don't pretend that everything I said is exact and a stress engineer might prove me wrong but it is just to demonstrate my point that some of us, DIY's, do care about our safety and do put some though about it.
BTW, the TIG welding on the Bergman's adapter is top notch, money we'll spent
