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Hi guys,
I had a horrible day. Driving home from work I felt a wobble, thought maybe i had a axle that was going. (Have had them fail before. ) Long story short, the lugs and studs failed and the wheel came off at about 50mph (I was doing 65 but was slowing down to investigate the issue… when the failure occurred)
Thankfully it appears the damage is pretty limited. the 17-19mm nut that holds the lower ball joint in was ground down to maybe 1-2mm above the lower control arm. the arm itself suffered a small amount of damage, a scrape that took off less than 5% of the metal
The lugs were stripped (I found some of the threads stuck to a stud), it appears the nut mentioned above rode inside the rim for a hundred or so revolutions before hitting the ground, while the lug holes appear to be intact, I have no plans to reuse the wheel, I’ll have to scrap it and the other 3 and buy new.
One stud is snapped, the other 3 are all loose in the hub.
The brake rotor looks to have taken some superficial damage, but once I got the car minimally drivable again it was making a pretty bad scraping noises so I guess hes bad now too. It made it home, did 10-15mph for the whole 5 miles….
I’ll try to post photos later today.
My question is:
Obviously I need a new lower ball joint and Hub, and most likely a new rotor, possibly a new lower control arm. What else?
What else will probably need to be done? (like for example, if you do the timing belt, you also might as well do the drive belts cause you have to remove them anyway — stuff like that… wheel bearings maybe?)Replace the hub or the whole hub assembly?
IF I do the lower control arm, do the new ones usually come with a ball joint installed?
Do control arms need to be done in pairs?
What parts are ok to junk yard source?How could this have happened? I torqued the lugs to the spec 80ft-lbs and even re torqued after 300 miles (they had not changed at all).
Thanks much for the help.
Andrew
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A picture worth a 1000 word … Which model is your vehicle?
You will only need 1 control arm at this moment. If you get your part from the junk yard, be selective in your option and you want to replace the wheel bearing on it as you dont know the condition and may has start to rust from sitting there.
To figure what happen look at the wheel stud hole. If they look really oval.. chance are that the wheel have come loose on you… usually it comes with symptom like vibration and noise… and sometime the noise goes away when you are braking. If you don’t see obvious wear, most likely the stud have seen there lifetime (not knowing the mileage of the vehicle) either have been stretched so many time and 1 or 2 have give up there strength… means they let go over pot hole and you were driving with really 2 stud instead of 4.
If you’ve had the car in a tire shop for work (and who hasn’t) I’d be checking the condition of the other three wheels.
Glad you’re OK. That can make for a very bad day.
Without inspecting it for ourselves it’s impossible to tell you what else you need. A good inspection is a great start. Once you’ve replaced the broken parts you can then recheck for issues. I actually did a video on this type of inspection.
Good luck and keep us posted.
looks like it only takes two..
Last one is of fender, I pulled it out at about 11 oclock.
its a 98 civic lx
180k.
oil pan did not touch the ground.
Evidently I had a file the uploader didn’t like and I think that’s what the issue was.
First, do you think I need a new control arm?
Second and third,If I buy a new lower control arm, will it come with a ball joint?
What does replacing one of those entail? New bushings?I did some thinking about the last place I took the car.
8 days ago I had the timing belt done, the timing belt is on the other side, but he replaced all the drive belts too, those are on this side. He’s got a shop lift… if you had/have one… would you still take off the wheel to change the belts?its looking like my 250 dollar timing belt replacement is going to cost much closer to other estimates…..
you will need the ball joint which is press on the knuckle as well as the lower control arm (the hit might bent it upward, you can look for stress mark). If you don’t change the control arm, your alignment will maybe be in spec but I doubt it and the alignment guy would call it anyway. I wouldn’t worry about the knuckle for now but I would consider the stud as well as the hub.. If you are doing the hub .. the bearing will be require. You can probably bent the backing plate back .. if the rotor as a flat spot you need to replace.
Recap. control arm, balljoint, hub, stud, bearing, rotor.
You may consider used (the knuckle should have balljoint backing plate bearing) but keep in mind you might have to put a bearing in it.
And of course you need to add your tire (maybe a pair) and whatever rim or mag … and the alignment
K
thank you for all the help.
I was on the bubble about the control arm… it doesn’t appear bent, the spot that hit is really near to where the strut fastens into it… but that rubber is pretty old too.
I’ll probably do it just to be safe.
Had a silly question, rather than fooling around with a new wheel bearing and hub and all that….(I hear they can get pretty tricky and easy to screw up)
think I could just steal a whole steering knuckle from a junk yard?I’ll do the ball joint just to be safe but the whole hub has me a bit nervous.
I’m also just a little worried what vibration severe enough to rip lugs off or snap a stud …. what else could that have damaged?
You can consider yourself lucky as when you loose a front wheel you can go in the ditch. I lost a rear wheel before and that wasn’t bad. Just my heart who took a beating 😉
If you get a full knuckle from the wrecker. It will usually come complete. You just don’t know if the bearing will be good as it as that part was sitting for unknown time and/or the bearing was bad when the owner was driving it. It’s the only thing I would consider.. the balljoint could be bad but I wouldn’t change it unless it fail on front end check.
At the end If you go wrecker you might save few dollar. As long as they can insure you the knuckle is good … I doubt the knuckle on your is bent but again you should look for stress mark… it usually look like the rust and/or paint has cracked and peel off (its usually easy to tell on a control arm or strut.
I totally was lucky! had the road been busy this could’ve been very very bad… i think i still would’ve been mostly ok (unless noone got out of my way on the way to the shoulder!) but that wheel could kill someone.
the current fun task is getting all the ball joints to LET GO, the upper ctl arm ball joint is spinning as i spin the nut, the tierod end seems glued in there and the lower ball join whos stem is only 1/4″ long now, also appear quite happy where he is. I’ll go grab a pickle fork tomorrow!
ok old wheels
14 5.5 45
new wheels off same year coupe
15 6 45
that last number is the lug distance right? So they will fit the lugs right?
The wheels are physically bigger but the steering knuckle looks exactly the same.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/tirecalc.php?tires=185-65r14-195-60r15
So at higher speed chances are ill be at lower rpm,(prob not noticeable) crappier acceleration (prob not noticeable either)…
any comments on that?
They actually have a gauge that you may be able to download and print for bolt patterns.
http://www.easternmarine.com/tech-info/wheel-hub-bolt-circle-template
You can use that to see if they will match up. You may have an issue with the wider wheel making contact with the inner fenders during turns. Also, you speedo will be off if you use larger tires. It may not be off by much, but it might be just enough to cause an issue.
Good luck and keep us posted.
i think it will make the speedo accurate, it always reads a smidge higher than any of the radar things say I’m going. I compared the brake rotors (easiest) they match exactly.
One small concern is the brakes are now at a little more of a mechanical disadvantage. Thoughts?
I got a junk steering knuckle, seems ok, ripped out the old ball joint… it also seemed ok but the boot was torn and I want to do this now and be done with it.
Whos the best brand for these kind of parts? I was told Moog so thats what I got. It’s really really tight, feels like its grinding actually.Hit it up with the red loctite, hammered it in, and in 16 more hours it will be 100% cured.
Thanks for the link! I’ll save it and I know its one of those things Ill use once in a blue moon but be very glad I have it to use it! I saw some rims in the yard that looked alot like that… I just look at them and ask how can that be safe? all those little holds so close to each other!
QUESTION:
If the tie rod end hasn’t been tightened or loosened, why do I need an alignment? It looks like they only thing they can change on this car is the toe-in, and that hasn’t been messed with. I head any time you do even just the balljoint you need an alignment, how come?
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