Hi
I had a fully rose-jointed setup on my live axle Stylus, which I had to modify due to the problem being discussed.
Originally I had all the joints on the 5-link axle as RJs - ie leading & trailing arms + panhard rod.
This is on a road going Stylus, but with modified suspension pick-up points to lower the car all round.
It's about as low as it can go & still deal with the odd speed-bump. Still another inch or so to go for a track-only car.
What actually happened in practice is that in extreme bump (ie pothole) the coilover runs out of travel & goes solid.
As suggested in the previous email - the descent of the fixed length rear upright+car/fuel/driver weight created a shear load on the single 1/2" rod end supporting directly under the rear wheel bearing - effectively guillotining the rod-end in half.
I broke the same passenger side rear RJ twice before taking a proper look at it - once while doing a slow layby U turn, second time at about 40 mph (fortunately travelling in a straight line). Don't want to think about it happening at 70+ in the outside lane of a motorway
To overcome this, I have now changed the problem joint on both sides to the original spec polybush & high tensile shanked bolt.
Problem has gone away & I haven't bent the lower arms so far- but the bottoming out needs to be properly cured.
Longer shocks (in alloy) are on my list of future upgrades !
HTH
Matt