Was showing off my build to a mate today, decided to take it for a spin on private land as not tested yet, and the lower wishbone ball joint lock nut failed which allowed the wishbone to drop down and the mounting bolts holding the ball joint to the wishbone then scored a nice groove on the inside of my wheel as the wheel was still turning arrrrgh!

Anyhow now ive calmed down and had a beer or three i thought id ask on here as to possible reasons or if its ever happend to anyone else, i know i had tightend the nut as i had just fitted my front arch brackets i know i used locktite and i used the supplied locknut, having looked at the nut i can see all the threads have been stripped as if the bolt has just been under so much pressure and just pushed its way out the threads. Could overtighening the nut have caused it to fail?

As you can imagine i think my mate was laughing on the inside

Sound like it to me, better it failed now than when you are doing 100MPH.

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Originally posted by madteg
Sound like it to me, better it failed now than when you are doing 100MPH.

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I would have though possibly over tightend. Just done a Haynes check for the Sierra and got 48 to 63 lb ft torque setting.

I have not heard this type of failure before. Sorry but glad you OK.

Adrian

[Edited on 11-6-10 by AdrianH]

Sounds strange normally it is very difficult to remove the ball joint from the upright once it has been tightened.

Are you sure you have the correct ball joint and correct nut?

Regards
Davie

Had the nut been re-used a few times?

Re-use wouldn't strip a thread, but may eventually cause it to lose the nyloc-iness and undo.
I suspect overtightening or if it is a repro part off ebay or somewhere a poor quality nut...

I would be inclined to change any similar supplied nuts, and maybe spend a few hours double checking the rest. Time that should re-assure you

sorry to here that greg.

possibly over tighten or a bad batch??

stuart

I've never heard of a nut failing, coming loose maybe, but failing!

Is that the taper on the hub that needs to be modified? If so, have you had your's done?

I took the nut off and wheeled the car out of the garage without remembering and it happened. Nice big scrape on the inside of the wheel

The nut on my top wishbone BJ fell off and I was a three wheeled car until I managed to pull over. I think I hadn't done that one up. A good trick is to get a Tippex marker pen and draw a line down the side of the BJ thread and nut. Then you can quickly do a visual check of all the nuts before you set off. That's what I do now anyway......

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Originally posted by Mark G
Is that the taper on the hub that needs to be modified? If so, have you had your's done?

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I drilled mine and fitted a split pin as a secondary measure

The girfriend had a tyre changed by a garage.
They had put the whell nuts on with an impact driver way too tight. When she hit a pothole, as she does quite regulary it ripped the threads off 2 of the 4 nuts.

Could be the same thing,
too tight and then a shock causing shear.

I'd think another potential cause of the stripped threads would be you've simply cross threaded it and tightened it up like that.

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Could be the same thing,
too tight and then a shock causing shear.

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