[Tigers] Check Your Nuts

[Joe Brown]

I was also wondering about how it came loose.  We have a bunch of rough
roads around here and I have to cross over several cattle guards. I wonder
if the nut came loose and then hitting pot holes and cattle guards knocked
the pin loose. I hope and pray that the hole in the knuckle hasn't been
worn out a little bit. I'll have to see how the new ball joints fit.  I'll
keep everybody posted.

Thanks,
Joe Brown

On Sat, Mar 8, 2025, 9:45 PM Jay Laifman <jay.laifman at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow.  That is really scary. Thanks for the warning.
>
> I see what you are saying about the castle nuts.  However, I have to say,
> in all the years I've taken off ball joints or tie rods, I've never ever
> had one just slide off, and they always needed a tool and a lot of force.
> So I'm wondering if something else happened there.
>
> On Sat, Mar 8, 2025 at 2:19 PM Joe Brown <jbbrown1980 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So,  I took my Tiger out yesterday for a short drive and as I was just
>> about home (maybe a hundred yards from my driveway) the right front
>> suspension dropped to the ground and I skidded several yards before
>> stopping.  All I could think of was the old stories about exploding ball
>> joints.
>>
>> I walked to my house and threw a floor jack and some jack stands in my
>> truck and drove back to the Tiger.  I managed to get the front end jacked
>> up and discovered that the nut on the lower ball joint was gone and the
>> lower A arm had dropped to the road.  My suspension pieces are at least 30
>> years old and the ball joints were held on with nylock nuts. I managed to
>> wrap a ratchet strap around the upper and lower A arms and I was able to
>> slowly drive the car into my garage.
>>
>> I am very lucky that:
>> 1. I was going pretty slow at the time
>> 2. The front end landed in some loose gravel on the side of the road
>> 3. None of the body work was damaged
>> 4.  And nothing else in the suspension looks to be damaged; just scraped
>> up
>>
>> If this had happened 5 minutes earlier I would have been doing 60 on a
>> winding road and I would have wound up in a ditch.
>>
>> So I'm ordering a new set of ball joints and I will drill them out for
>> castle nuts so I don't have to worry about a nut working its way loose
>> again.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Joe Brown
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> tigers at autox.team.net
>>
>> Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
>> Archive: http://www.team.net/pipermail/tigers
>> http://autox.team.net/archive
>>
>> Unsubscribe:
>> http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/tigers/jay.laifman@gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/tigers/attachments/20250308/8312cd60/attachment.htm>