Minor rant and warning - ball joints

I agree....Moog parts are, and have been, a cl*** act. They've been around a long time,.....
Those locking nuts are a spin off from aviation hardware.

4TTRUK

 

Y'all just crack me up. Moog parts-likely better, they're a good company, but they're also a billion dollar, publicly traded worldwide company,too-answering to shareholders.

From their financial statement:
"Our manufacturing facilities are located in the United States, England, the Philippines, Germany, China, India, Italy, The Netherlands, Japan, Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Ireland and Canada".

Head out of the sand, please.

 

I don't think anyone is listening.

Sent via Western Union Express

 

A man goes into an auto parts store and asks, "Can you give me a
cigarette lighter for my Yugo?"
"Sure, sounds like a fair trade to me."

 

I am , and I learned something today as well. I realized that the nuts being complained about were lock nuts, however the link to "stover nuts" gave me a lot of knowledge about the different shapes and markings of that type of nut. I was in the nut and bolt business as a salesman for many years and did not know that a little rectangular indentation on the side of a nut meant it was a lock nut that could be put either side up because the locking portion was in the MIDDLE of the nut. Neat trick !! Thanks

 

I will add, if it was important for these nuts to have that oval hole in one side, then why did only one of them come with them? Even there they were inconsistent.

 

crankem down tight,

 

Stover nuts, well thats interesting. Until I read the link I called them squash nuts. Thanks for enlightening me.

 

Don't crank'em down too tight. Mine twisted right off - two of the eight bolts supplied with the ball joints snapped off. These were NAPA house brand. I don't know who makes them, but the box says "china". I replaced them all with grade 8 and lock washers. My only question is, what about the quality of the steel in the joint itself??

 

Oh, yea. I'm listening. I knew they were locking nuts b/c the instructions accompanying the joints said so, and also said that once they had been tightened, they could not be loosened and reused... "stover" nut is new terminology for me. Thanks for the link 1955ihc.

 

Lock washers are a waste of time. You will never see them on a modern critical joint, as most designers got rid of them decades ago. Bolts clamp by stretching to provide clamp load.

Prevailing torque fasteners are rarely used anymore as it is difficult to control bolt stretch (clamp load) because of the wide variability of friction in such devices.

 

Rusty....saw the lock washer post.....

 

Put chain store house brand ball joints in a buddy's Dakota truck. We forgot which chain, but They were the bottom of the line part, with either a 90 day or one year guarantee. About a year later the rubber boots were cracked and gaping open, and a few of the bolts had spontaneously broken so a half was missing. I never expected such poor performance from ANY part, despite the short guarantee, but will now.

 

You're killin' me. You threw away the locknuts and bought new nuts and then added lock***e?

 

Yes they are, and almost every one of what probably adds up to a thousand of that style ball joints that I installed over the years had those nuts in the package.

On the ones with the lock washers in the package and regular nuts I always take a hammer and hit the end of the threads of the bolts to smash them over just enough so that the nuts will never back clear off. They might get loose but they won't come off the bolt completely on their own and you will never reuse them anyhow.