I'm in the process of improving the steering and want to make the steering arms again. My car uses spindles from a fiat 125 where the steering arm is bolted to the spindle so it's easy to correct them.

Something like this:





The current steering arms seems to be made from 7/8 square mild steel bar. I plan to use 1" mild steel to strengthen this part.

Now the question, is mild steel suitable? I need a small bend (20°), do I need to heat the metal or can I cold bend it?

Thank you very much!

[Edited on 31/8/13 by Nitrogeno25]

I think you'll find that steering arms are normally made from a casting? They suffer very high loads and I would think that you would be taking a risk with mild steel.

I am not an expert, and that is just my opinion

Don't even think about cold bending.

The steering arms are forged steel you can hot bend them with a lot of concentrated heat but you should get them crack tested afterwards.

To bend them you will need an oxy-acetylene or oxy-propane cutting torch on pre-heat (nb not cutting) concentrate the heat on the inside radius of the bend which has to be to yellow heat bend a litle the heat, bend then heat until you get get the required angle then allow to air cool .
A good experienced black smith should be able to do this BUT crack testing is essential


If you allow it to get to cold when bending you will get cracks on the outside of the bend.

What we really need is to make the steering arms with a different shape (very simple).

We can make them from 1045 steel of mil steel (1018-1020).

I've heard lot of different opinions about the material we should use. Many people said that spindles are made of cast iron, so 1045 should be plenty enough.

The only thing that worries me is that mild steel could bent in an accident but 1045 may crack intead, don't know.

We are going to use 1045, but I'm not sure about the correct way of bending a 1" square bar of 1045 steel.

Many thanks!

Regards.

[Edited on 3/9/13 by Nitrogeno25]

yes 1045 is fine as 1045 can be hot forged..
I recommend heating evenly to a cherry red putting your bend in then let it cool slowly but as it approachs a dull red tap it quickly all over the bend with a toffy hammer as it cools just hard enough to but little dints in it. this will stress releave it as it cools and prevent cracking which it most probably wont anyway.. the finish can be ground smooth when cold