c3 Trailing Arm

About 6 months ago I had the the trailing arm assembley in my 1973
replaced by one I bought bebuilt from a shop in South Jersey. The
rebuilt assembly was a rebuilt bolt on trailing arm. Two days ago the
trailing arm I replaced broke and the rear tire locked up. The tire
was leaning at a 30 degreee angle from the car. Is it the the traing
arm assembly that went bad or the person that installed it did it
incorrectly? the installer of the arm was not the shop who rebuilt the
assembly. The arm assembly is warranted and hopefully the shop who
rebuilt it will honor the warranty. I am just not sure who I should
use to replace the trailing arm this time? Should I use the same guy
to bolt the new one on? Is special equiptment required to install the
assembly?

wrote:
> About 6 months ago I had the the trailing arm assembley in my 1973
> replaced by one I bought bebuilt from a shop in South Jersey. The
> rebuilt assembly was a rebuilt bolt on trailing arm. Two days ago the
> trailing arm I replaced broke and the rear tire locked up. The tire
> was leaning at a 30 degreee angle from the car. Is it the the traing
> arm assembly that went bad or the person that installed it did it
> incorrectly? the installer of the arm was not the shop who rebuilt the
> assembly. The arm assembly is warranted and hopefully the shop who
> rebuilt it will honor the warranty. I am just not sure who I should
> use to replace the trailing arm this time? Should I use the same guy
> to bolt the new one on? Is special equiptment required to install the
> assembly?
What part of the trailing arm broke? Are you sure it was the trailing arm
and not the left strut? Can't say I ever heard of a trailing arm breaking.
Was the 30 degree lean in the vertical or fore & aft direction?

The trailing arm itself is quite strong, and the only thing holding it
to the
chassis frame is a long pivot bolt in the front, plus 4 bolts holding the
spindle bearing assembly to the rear of the arm. Not a lot can go wrong
there if the nuts are snug. There is not a lot of stress on the trailing
arm,
it simply keeps the wheel parallel to the frame fore & aft and it has a
long
lever helping it do that, so there's not a lot of strain on the pivot bolt.
Most likely failure that would cause a wheel to cant 30 degrees would be
improper assembly (loose or missing bolts), or a badly-worn stub axle
failure
(the part the swing axle attaches to at the differential).

The left swing axle and the left strut keep the wheel vertically
aligned, so
if the wheel is now at a 30 degree vertical angle, it seems to me that
either the
stub axle or the strut MUST have let go (the stub axle is known
to wear through at a lan (edge) that is used, with a snap-ring, to hold the
stub axle into the differential... end-play in Corvette stub axles is
critical,
and a saavy Corvette mechanic would check it as a matter of routine
while the swing axle was loose from the wheel spindle.
The stub axle would be my prime suspect. Once the stub axle lets go, it
conceivably could cause the trailing arm to twist if the wheel is rocked
hard to one side (eg, hard cornering when the axle stub comes loose).

Was there any advance warning noise? What were you doing when it let go?