The pin through the rear upright has always bothered me because it counts on small bolt threads to hold it together. Worse, it’s the threads that are the only thing preventing braking or acceleration forces from popping the thing apart. Also, I’d used the wrong stainless alloy when fabricating them, so both issues were solved at once. And the thing that pushed it over the edge was that the toe-control link rod-end had some slop in it, allowing the wheel to rock back and forth when given the standard “wriggle test” such as would be administered at an autocross (note that the new toe-control link is a high-grade rod end, which necessitated drilling out and retapping the toe-control link.) Also, the original setup had no easy way to ensure that the bolts wouldn’t back out… so the whole thing was redone, starting with the proper stainless 17-4 condition H1150 rod. Switching to external threads greatly improved strength and moved the load-bearing thread out from under the rod-ends. In the picture, the new pin is at top, with the original below.
On a side note, whenever I’d walk into the garage (when the car was fully-assembled) I could always smell gas. That wasn’t altogether unexpected, since there’s no vapor recovery – I assumed it was either fumes coming out the vent hose, or seeping from yet another fuel tank leak. What’s interesting though is that with the car disassembled, there’s no gas smell at all. If the leak was in or around the fuel tank it would certainly be stinking up the garage, especially today with it being 92 deg F today… and it’s not. That “seems” to indicate that the leak is coming from somewhere else, like from the fuel rail which is currently disconnected (and in fact, is the only fuel system component that’s disconnected.) I’d expect that on a warm day like today, the smell should be especially strong due to vapor expansion, and it’s not… I don’t get it. I’ll have to look the fuel rail over real close once it’s back together and back to its usual smell…