[Tigers] cheap ball joints

[Tom Hall]

At 03:59 PM 7/16/2007, you wrote:
>Others will have more detailed history here, but from what I recall
>there was a replacement (lower?) balljoint on the market where the ball
>and shaft were copper plated for corrosion resistance and it was
>retained only by a nylock nut, not a castellated and cotter-pinned
>assembly. Both the copper plating and the nylock nut were causes for
>failure, but I don't have any direct experience or first hand stories
>related to these items.
>
>Theo

I believe Theo has the story a bit upside down as it were.  The OEM 
ball joints made by Engineered Products and possibly also by other 
English manufacturers had the ball unit copper plated.  Later, tin or 
other similar silver-ish plating was used.  These ball joints were 
all supplied with castleated nuts and cotter pins.  When Q-H started 
making these replacements, they terminated the plating operations and 
substituted Nylock nuts.  Early on, these pieces had internal rust or 
other internal related problems and several locked to the point where 
they didn't turn in the ball socket.  The norm was that they began to 
turn in the taper.  Cut to the chase, several of them unscrewed the 
Nylock nuts dropping the lower A-arm to the ground.  I have first 
hand knowledge of this failure, and reports of several more.

To his credit, Rick (Sunbeam Specialties), when told of this mode of 
failure, began drilling the shanks of the ball joints he sold and 
supplied the castleated nuts and cotter pins.  The problem of ball 
joints unscrewing themselves disappeared.  I recently heard that it 
occurred again with an older Nylock installation.

Word to the wise: Don't drive around with Nylock nuts retaining your 
lower ball joints.  The uppers ball joints have never been reported 
to experience this problem, so I suspect it's a manufacturing and or 
shipping/storage, environment related cause.

Tom Hall
ModTiger Engineering LLC
www.tigerengineering.net