I recently bought a new pair of track rod arms from the leading 2CV parts specialist. I was preparing them for paint by grinding off all the flash lines and then smoothing and polishing them - makes them look nicer too. I noticed that they were MUCH softer than the last pair I did some years ago - almost like they are just plain mild steel.

They were so soft that I didn't bother with a grinder in the end, just used files and 40 through 240 grit paper.

Have they always been this soft - my experience on original Citroen parts and 1930's Ford forgings are that they are a lot tougher to prep for paint and chrome.

Perhaps they havent had any heat treatment?

Perhaps only the ball ends have been treated on these pattern parts and the whole thing was case hardened on original parts?

dont think even the balls are treated

the Ami 6 set that are now on the blue car show no effects of wear but do show signs of pitting corrosion that id expect to see on a high carbon steel

guess the older ones were just a better quality steel

any recent car has a ball end that is soft enough to mark with a file easily

Hi, if you read the bit in my thread about the balljoint conversion, I cut the arms lengthwise with a hacksaw, they didn't seem very hard to me. I've no idea whether they were original or pattern parts though.

The hardness of these parts is something that I will be encountering myself soon.
The plan is to machine the ball end down to an M8 and cut a thread into it, then fit a reducer and M 14 X 1.25 left hand thread, male rod end.

As you could imagine the M 14 X 1.25 male rod end was hard to come by. I order it from India via email, so dodgy, but they did arrive, $US110 later, most of which was shipping...

So, can they be machined in a lathe?

Harley