Ok, I just looked and Looked and Looked, no luck.

I am not talking steering applications, and I am not really interested in Aurora's specs, which show that comparable size and quality of male vs. female heim's will have about the same strength.

I am looking for real world experience here,

It seems that most of the rod ends I hear / see breaking are breaking the stem off the end.

I know this is because the SRE is not setup right in the application, but I also know that shit happens on the trail, and I think that the female rod end might be less prone to snapping in half if you somehow get it bound up.

Does anyone have any trail exprience to support or refute this? I am looking into getting a solid line for aurora parts, but I am not sure which I should go for, male or female.

Ok, I did some research here and found nothing on strength differences in terms of male vs female thread. All the specs in the Aurora catolog are the same for each type. Allthough, there are no numbers/calcs on the shearing strength of the shafts. I am sure that you could find the yeilding strength of the material (4130 or what ever you want to use) and run some calcs. However, I would think it would be safe to say that the shaft strength is at least as strong as the ultimate static load rating of the rod ends (which is max rating of the bearing assembly). As for a line on Aurora product, click here (http://www.polyperformance.com/rod_ends.htm). FYI, I have only seen one 3/4 Aurora bend and that was on a vechicle that was in a very serious head on collision.

A couple years ago I broke some 12000# rodends holding the top links in a 4-link, the bearing cage split wide open (thrashed my new coilovers in the rear) :( I think the threads on the rod/link (or whatever you are using) would be weaker than the stud of the rodend.

Originally posted by dirtrod
the bearing cage split wide open

That actually sounds like a good sign. Instead of sheering off the stem from side loading the joint or something it just got overloaded in its load bearing areas. A bigger / stronger joint would (and probably has) fixed the problem completely.

Originally posted by foley


That actually sounds like a good sign. Instead of sheering off the stem from side loading the joint or something it just got overloaded in its load bearing areas. A bigger / stronger joint would (and probably has) fixed the problem completely.
Yea, it sucked at the time, but was easy to fix. I've had Endura 5/8"x3/4" 40,000# joints since then (2 years) with no problems.