Hi all. How’s this for a close call. Car been just IVA’d & on the road for a week. Been out for a few spirited blats & after having done 200miles I thought it would be wise to give it a check over of all the important bits, Imagine my horror when I saw this. Now I’m not going to try to blame anyone else, I built the thing but I know they were tight, maybe I had some paint left on the inside of the taper? But all the fuss about locknuts for the test & the tester took the caps off & checked them, they did sod all here the nut was hanging on by the last two plain threads. Well there tight now, with lock tight & I’ve thrown the girly caps away so I can see them.!!
Morel of the story.
It just goes to show how important It is to check your nuts regularly boy‘s

Not good mate but at-least you found it before things went wrong

I'd be straight out to buy a lucky dip, must be your lucky day!

Glad you noticed, although these cars do drive remarkably well on 3 wheels, guess how I know

Cheers

Rich

You could easliy argue that nut covers shouldn't be allowed as they do tend to hide things like this.

Stu

Had the nylock been undone and redone up at anypoint?

Very lucky there

Definitely going to be checking mine over regularly for the first feww weeks to see what, if anything, needs re-torqueing or lock-tighting. (Once I get the test/reg out of the way).

Very suspicious. A new Nylok should not unwind like that at all. By the way, have you 'lost' the sharp edge covers on the bottom of your shocks or didnt you need them? And I like your fitting of the brake flexibles to the bottom wishbone. Very neat.

I check my nuts every day, don't most blokes. Ray

In all the pre assemblies I fitted the nuts with a stack of washers under the nuts so the thread didn’t reach the nylock & I didn’t tighten fully. On final assembly I tightened them one at a time then fitted a cap. Only two explanations I can think of are heavy paint left on the inside of the taper or rush of sh 1t to the brain when I fitted it. Covers on the bottoms of the dampers aren’t necessary as the are inside the theoretical wishbone box, as incidentally are the top & bottom swivel nuts ( but not the track rod ends)

To think of the times I've cursed the tab washers & split pins that abound on my '64 Traveller... never had one come loose.

Like many people on here, I guess that I have undone the ball joint nulock nuts at least a couple of times during the course of the build.

Given those scary pictures, does anyone know where I can get some replacement nuts. The pitch on the thread seems to be finer than 'normal' nylocs of that size plus the nuts are not as thick. As I say, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who should really replace them on safety grounds but wants to avoid buying a whole new ball joint each time.

At least you spotted it when it had two threads left- I didn't! You can imagine what happened.

Top tip- pack of 5 cheap tippex type pens from the poundstore. Go round the car drawing white lines over the top of the nuts and the bolts. Makes it very easy to see if something has turned. Okay you could be unlucky and it could have turned exactly so that the lines line up again but it means I check 'em each time I go out (quick visual check) rather than never...