03 venture suspension help

[hereismylife]

Posting this for a new member....

Picked up an 03 Venture a few weeks ago and every thing was going well until the suspension just dropped. Broke the rear pivot arm right in two. Yup, the heavey duty one with the two pieces of square tubing holding it together. Both pieces of square tubing are broken. Have either of you guys ever heard of this. Picked up a replacement on ebay, but i'm little nervous about getting it back together and it happening again. I didn't bottom out real bad or anything like that. I'm wondering if it was already cracked and I finished it off. Thanks.

 

[BETHEVIPER]

how large is the rider? never seen one of those broke in 30-40 of those sleds I have junked and never sold one to anyone either

 

[rpellts]

We were riding 2 up at the time...maybe 300 lbs total. I tried to load a couple of pics. One is the bent front bracket that I noticed when disasembling. Two is of the broken Pivot arm.

 

[rpellts]

03 venture

Finished getting the suspension back together. Tightened a lot of the bushings per betheviper's instructions. Reenforced the w arm. It was beginning to crack a little. New pivot arm from ebay was in great shape. got in a little scrape when it came time to put the suspension in. The used pivot arm came with the main cross shaft which looked like new so I figured i'd use it. Pressed the wheels on and had it all set to go. When it came time to install, the new shaft was about an inch too long. Had to take the idlers back off and use the old shaft. Still can't figure out why the old pivot arm broke. Everything seems to work good but couldn't go very far since we lost most of our snow. If the snow holds out in northern Maine may head up there to go for a ride next weekend. will look into putting bearings on my shocks this summer.