Originally Posted by
That lights normal!
The reported current PCL service life of 160hrs seems alarming. Something like resonance, or unexpected forces through the PCL resulting in the extremely short service life.
Hopefully not a knee jerk reaction to a problem not yet understood.
I ran into a problem where a component developed cracks well before its expected service life. Turned out the component bowed under load which was not accommodated for. I wonder if the long thin pitch links on the 160 are similarly bowing under compressive load which would increase the loads due to localized bending in the threaded section of the rod ends. Since this is the area of the threads, strain gages are not applied during testing for direct load measurements. Instead the loads are extrapolated from gages in more convenient (smooth) locations. If this is the case here expect to see larger diameter pitch links in the near future.