Lug/stud failure at high speed

[dosmastr]

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

Topic

[kevin gosselin]

You want to make sure camber and caster are still in range. With a hit that way if the lower control is bent.. you would have positive camber. Replacing the part would bring your camber back.. They ae not adjustable from factory, but it’s always good to double check your work. Maybe the knuckle from the junk yard is bent.. I always recommend alignment after any suspension part replacement. A tie rod is a must.. Te boss kid … we replace both is lower control arm on his villager.. the bushing were worn. That bring the car back over 2.0 toe in.. He didn’t want the alignment right away cause it was friday night and wanted to go for a long drive trip. He came back with tire showing excessive wear.

[dosmastr]

[quote=”Kgevil” post=96897]You want to make sure camber and caster are still in range. With a hit that way if the lower control is bent.. you would have positive camber. Replacing the part would bring your camber back.. They ae not adjustable from factory, but it’s always good to double check your work. Maybe the knuckle from the junk yard is bent.. I always recommend alignment after any suspension part replacement. A tie rod is a must.. Te boss kid … we replace both is lower control arm on his villager.. the bushing were worn. That bring the car back over 2.0 toe in.. He didn’t want the alignment right away cause it was friday night and wanted to go for a long drive trip. He came back with tire showing excessive wear.[/quote]

i gotcha i know in this case I need one, i mean more in general, I had other ball joints go bad where I did nothing but replace the ball joint and was told i need a new alignment — thats what i was asking about

[EricTheCarGuy]

You’re correct, the only adjustable angle is toe. If the other angles are off, something is bent or not installed correctly. Personally I wouldn’t worry about the alignment after that repair unless the vehicle didn’t drive properly afterward, or I had issues with uneven tire wear. That wouldn’t show up till much later however but if you hear them squealing on turns it’s likely the alignment is off.

Also, not sure if your use of locktite is appropriate. If it wasn’t there from the factory, you probably shouldn’t use it either.

[dosmastr]

The brakes feel pretty weak now… how much of that is probably just everything breaking in (the rotor I grabbed to run temporarily until i have more time to do a break job is pretty rusty) vs mechanical disadvantage due to larger wheels.

I’m trying to find if the EX coupe (most likely where these wheels came from) had larger calipers than the lx’s but i’m finding some places show one part for both and others have different model numbers… well, one site does.

EDIT:
Took it out for a good drive, highway with lights 55, and then interstate 65, and then eventually 80.
Tires seem balanced. Might be the still deformed fender but i swear i hear something like a hum, like one of those big wheeled 4×4 jeeps but much quieter.

The “new” steering knuckle has me somewhat concerned. Before it was in the car, I could wiggle the hub a little bit. I was hoping it was because of all the banging I had to do to get the ball joints to let go (and believe me, it was ALOT of banging, on what the bolt went through, with a pretty hefty hammer) might have loosened it up a little, (and tightening the axle nut back up will remedy) That said even after all this the old hub, which is shot, does not wiggle even the tiniest bit. The new hub/wheel bearing spins as freely and consistently as the old hub though, no binding or anything.

As far as the loctite, I know one of the ball joints I took out of this car had it on it… may or may not have been OEM… I thought I remembered reading to do that someplace… but I’d rather trust a Master Tech going fwd and wont use it again. 🙂

this is the 4th ball joint I’ve put on the car… why does it eat them?
the first two died maybe a few months apart, sounded like death when you turned the wheel, less that 2 years later the same one dies again… this time I got Moog, hopefully the dying joints is over.

[Author]

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