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Junk parts.

Stoney

Stoney

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,566
Reaction score
9,763
Location
Elmira ny
Boy I'm about f****** sick of these companies making junk parts.
As most of you know I have broken lower ball joints on my truck at least five times in the time I have owned it.
And tonight yet again my truck came home on a roll bed. This time the ball joint itself didn't break the castle nut did. Front of the truck went boom on the road doing 50... Ripped the threads off the ball joint, snapped the tie rod, don't know yet if it twisted the lower control arm I won't know that until morning when I can actually get under it good..
Oh and as a added bonus this time free of charge it smacked my fender.
So tomorrow my extra brother is going to buy new parts for it once again but this time we're getting Napa parts. Let's see if they hold up any better.. I doubt it.
Oh and I would love to give a great big shout out to good old AAA.. they're happy to take my money every year. But evidently they don't have anybody in the Elmira New York area on shift at night time.. they told me that the truck would have to wait until morning to get towed which means it would be sitting right in the inner City.. in other words my truck would be stripped by the time a wrecker went to get it.. thank God my brother and I are friends with a tow company.. because we were able to call them and get a truck out to tow it home. We did some free tree work for the tow company a while back so they owed us one so to speak.. but that's not the point.. I pay my fees to AAA every year. When I need a wrecker I need a wrecker.. what would have happened if I was a hundred miles from home.. freaking ridiculous.
 

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@Stoney glad your ok, doing 50 with that happening could have been worse! I'd try reaching out to AAA corporate office once they are open and let them know how you were dealt with. having your rig sitting in town especially where you couldn't even move it off out of the road could result is it getting impounded by the on-duty wrecker on rotation for the city! I'm sure if that happened there would be a battle for getting AAA to pay those fees for their neglect.

AAA has contracts with various tow companies, in their contracts the tow companies are supposed to hold up their end of the deal. letting AAA's office know what happened could result in that particular tow company loosing that contract for business. AAA may also want you to submit a tow receipt and get some money back. even though you didn't have to pay out on this tow, it would make for an afternoon with you, your brother and the tow driver that came to the rescue for a night out with some beer lol.
 
dbrannon79 said:
@Stoney glad your ok, doing 50 with that happening could have been worse! I'd try reaching out to AAA corporate office once they are open and let them know how you were dealt with. having your rig sitting in town especially where you couldn't even move it off out of the road could result is it getting impounded by the on-duty wrecker on rotation for the city! I'm sure if that happened there would be a battle for getting AAA to pay those fees for their neglect.

AAA has contracts with various tow companies, in their contracts the tow companies are supposed to hold up their end of the deal. letting AAA's office know what happened could result in that particular tow company loosing that contract for business. AAA may also want you to submit a tow receipt and get some money back. even though you didn't have to pay out on this tow, it would make for an afternoon with you, your brother and the tow driver that came to the rescue for a night out with some beer lol.
Click to expand...
I'm about done with AAA.

The last tow was a no show.

The tow before that was a 28 hour wait
 
Sorry about your incident Stoney. I too have an issue with AAA. Over the summer it was very hot and needed a tow. Two hours later AAA finally showed up and the driver was all pissed off that we had kept calling his dispatch to get an ETA because they kept stringing us along. Once loaded, the driver drove like a bat out of hell. Maybe it would be best not to pay the couple hundred bucks a year for triple A and just deal with it when it happens...
 
I haven't had to use it, but our auto insurance has towing. I wonder if what insurances offer is any better? I would think that the tow companies, mainly smaller outfits, not so much the big franchizes don't like AAA or other tow packages because the company or the driver isn't getting paid right away for the service. they have to way 30-45+days for AAA to pay them.
 
Wreckinball67 said:
Sorry about your incident Stoney. I too have an issue with AAA. Over the summer it was very hot and needed a tow. Two hours later AAA finally showed up and the driver was all pissed off that we had kept calling his dispatch to get an ETA because they kept stringing us along. Once loaded, the driver drove like a bat out of hell. Maybe it would be best not to pay the couple hundred bucks a year for triple A and just deal with it when it happens...
Click to expand...
Yep. We're doing 3 strikes. They've got 2 so far.
Prior to this year things have been pretty smooth.
 
dbrannon79 said:
I haven't had to use it, but our auto insurance has towing. I wonder if what insurances offer is any better? I would think that the tow companies, mainly smaller outfits, not so much the big franchizes don't like AAA or other tow packages because the company or the driver isn't getting paid right away for the service. they have to way 30-45+days for AAA to pay them.
Click to expand...
And they definitely don't like the money offered.
 
I'm not sure I've heard of breaking ball joints this often. Are the roads bad where your truck spends most of its life? I could see them being worn due to harsh conditions. We have stone roads not too far from us that are like a washboard at times. It's to the point where if a person has to drive on them, they hope for a snow and ice storm because it usually yields smooth roads when the roads are coated.
 
@SnowDrift Our roads ain't the best but not terrible either. This time the castle nut snapping Clean in half... It was a dura last brand.
The one before that is the one that came in the brand new lower control arm I got from RockAuto.. which I installed maybe 8 - 10 months ago..
About two and a half years ago I broke two in two weeks.. replaced it to a fighter a broke again replaced it again..
What really makes no sense. Is that once again I'm going to have to find a new spindle.. because where the nut tightens down is all rounded out on the spindle again..
And I have no clue why because we torqued that to exact specification..
I put a new ball joint in yesterday this time I bought a napa brand one. It's going to have to deal with the spindle being messed up for now.. because they are hard to find around here.
I halfway thought about tack welding the nut right to the spindle
 
This is going to sound like a dumb question probably.. will it hurt anything if I tack weld the castle nut to the threads on the ball joint... And tack weld the bottom of the castle nut to the top of the hole in the spindlewhere it comes through... That way I don't have to worry about the not coming loose or spinning and damaging the spindle more
 
What about taking a chisel and damaging the threads, rather than welding. Then it can only spin off so far and acts more like a locknut. Welding a part like that, could cause the part to become brittle in the heat affected zone. Personally, I'm not sure I would risk it on a chassis part. Then again, you've had some catastrophic failures already...
 
@SnowDrift . That's not a bad idea.. or I guess I could put an actual lock washer under it. The problem is everybody says that nut has to be torqued properly.. but every time we torque it to spec, it comes loose a little which lets it pivot around and it damages the top of the spindle where it sits on it. And kind of rounds it out under the nut.. I don't really understand what would be wrong with tightening the hell out of that nut... Especially since the part of the ball joint that goes up through the spindle is not supposed to move.. only the ball at the end is supposed to move in the cup end on the lower part of the ball joint.. kind of like a shoulder socket.. what im worried about is one of these days it's going to break when I'm going extremely fast or in heavy traffic, or I'm a hell of a long way from home and I don't have the money to get the truck towed home.. I'm hoping that since this time I used a Napa ball joint instead of the duralast one hopefully this one will actually hold up... Ironically my buddy/brother Clayton has a truck identical to mine except it's not a crew cab, and he goes through ball joints and idler arms and pitman arms constantly... He's selling his cuz he's tired of screwing with it.. he's committing blasphemy and buying a Ford.. traitor
 
@ak diesel driver By tamper you mean the sloped part that goes through the spindle correct? As I've said before, I've always bought them from AutoZone.. store brand..(stupid I know). So they probably were not tapered properly...
The one I just put in is from Napa.. hopefully better quality...but my concern is that the top of the spindle where the nut touches it is rounded out .. and spindles are hard to find In junk yards right now...I changed the spindle assembly about a year ago.. because of same problem.. that leads me to believe the problem wasn't with the spindles but rather with the inferior AutoZone ball joints..so hopefully this time I've solved the problem... If I put a large lock washer under the nut for now will it be ok for awhile? Until I can find a different spindle assembly? Or should I tack weld the nut to the threads? I know that means I've gotta cut it out later but better than having it come apart on me again.
 
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