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[Lizzie_Zoom]

Lizzie, may I recommend a book called Structures or why things don't fall down by JE Gordon? This clearly explains why cast iron was an unsuitable material to build bridges with, among many other things. A nice clear explanation of tensile strength and the difference between stress and strain are well worth the cost.

Thanks for that Nick

[Rods2]

The purity of metal components has improved due to better production techniques along with better designs using CAD systems and much closer machining tolerances. With cars we have the Japanese to thank in many ways for this. The Ford technique of selecting the piton to fit each bore, such were the production tolerances, is now thankfully a thing of the past.

Broken half-shafts was a very common problem on cars that were produced before the mid-1960's, but not something you hear of these days.