Ball Joint Failure - New underwear please!!

T

tvr_v8

New Member
Hey,
Still feeling rather shaken at the moment as a result of just having had a lower ball joint fail spectacularily on the P6 at around 80kph on the highway a couple of hours ago....

Heading along the highway in morning traffic, all feeling normal, next thing i know loud bang, lots of smoke, back of the car all over the place, front of the car all over the place - wrestling with it to avoid hitting cars on either side, brought it to a halt between two lanes....

Bit i don't get is i also remember the engine revving very high, wondering if this was since i had my foot on the gas at the time if i have either hit both pedals bringing it to a halt, if one of the rears has lifted off the ground and what therefore spinning without resistance or if some part oflinkage has been hit/bent/moved when the wheel came up. Either way i remember slamming it into N and switching the engine off as quickly as i could.

So yeah, very shaken, very thankful i managed to avoid hitting anything else and still had some vague control of the car when it went and that neither I nor anyone else is at all hurt... Just in need of some new underwear!! Also very glad it didn't happen on the way to/from the Hanging Rock show over the weekend as then the speed could have been more like 110kph rather than 80 and could have been a lot worse..

Obviosuly wasn't able to do much to see what had broken when stuck in the middle of a 4 lane highway but it looks like the bottom ball joint has cleanly popped out of the pillar. The ball joints are new and have been on the car less than 500km or so, they were pressed in by a garage round the corner from me so I think i'll need to have a chat with the suppliers and the people who fitted them. Has anyone ever seen this happen before? Suppose i could have hit a rock or something but don't recall seeing anything in the road and sure something big enough to do this would have been noticeable.

Cheers,

Al

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That looks scary, I have never had a problem with the lower ball joints. I see that you still had the retaining ring looped around the bottom of the joint, maybe it was not pressed fully home into its recess? Might be worth checking the other side......... :? Glad to hear that the only injury was to pride and underpants, but I am sorry that your car had to take a wallop like that, that wing looks like it may need more than a little beating to fix! Hope you are back on the road again soon (I know that I hope to be back out again as well!!!!!!!!)

I hope the idiot that posted before me fails to grace us with his pointless presence again, I think that account should be deleted as it looks to be a spammer.

Cheers

GUY :D
 
Sorry about the mishap Al, but on the other hand i am glad that it did not turn out worse! You know it could well have been.

It looks as if the ball joint itself is intact, but it pulled itself out of the pillar. Clearly, it hadn't been fitted properly, or they butchered the pillar trying to get the old one out, which then failed. You should speak to whoever fitted them and inspect ALL the other work they have done on the car.
Perhaps they did the other side like this too.

Demetris
 
Glad to hear you're OK. I bet that caused a stir - I can see the Police car sat behind you with the recovery truck!

I've never heard of that happening before! The clue must be in that retaining ring. Either the joint not properly pushed home or the bottom of the pillar damaged getting the old one out. I think I'd definitely want a new pillar! Looks like the wing got you bonnet as well :roll:

Best of luck sorting the garage!!!

Chris
 
That does look like it was pretty scarey! Glad you're ok though. As Demetris and Chris said before me it'll be interesting to see the condition of the bottom of the pillar to see if that failed. I wonder if the garage that removed the old one damaged the slot that the retaining spring washer sits in allowing some movement and eventual pop-out. Having just done a bottom balljoint myself about 300 miles ago I'll be having a wee look later to check all is well.

Hope you get it sorted soon and find out why it happened.

Dave
 
Hello Al,

Yes indeed,..glad that you are ok.

I have never seen nor heard of that happening before, so it looks as if it is down to the butcher (mechanic) that fitted it. Makes my blood boil,..so many of these people are completely useless.

Ron.
 
Thanks guys, i appreciate your kind comments.

Yep, any damage to the car can be repaired, just very glad to have been able to bring it to a halt without injury to myself or anyone else in the lanes around me. Was very lucky that there was nothing directly alongside as it's a very busy road especially at that time in the morning. Caused quite spectacular traffic chaos however, especially since it took 1.5hr for the tow truck to arrive...

Makes sense, especially now the retaining ring has been pointed out in the pics. I had the same place install both the top and bottom joints on both sides a couple of weeks apart (working on one side at a time). I had removed the swivel pillars from the car myself and took them in to my local (*edit - removed name of well known suspension fitters*) to do the removal of the old joints and press the new ones in. All looked ok before they went back on the car but yeah, I suspect the other side could very well be exactly the same it's going nowehere until both sides have been removed and replaced with a fresh set of joints that can be confirmed as having been installed 100% properly.

Where should the retaining ring be seated? From where it looks to be sitting now i am suspecting that it was potentially at the opening of the cup rather than in the central ridge slot type bit of the ball joint, and has therefore not been holding anything but also not visible as it would have been hidden by the larger ridge of the joint when in the pillar and only a matter of time before it worked free.

I'll get a good look at the old pillar and post some pics if i can once the place that are doing the quote for the insurance co (fingers crossed that they cover it) get it removed to see if there are any signs of damage that could have been caused during fitting, and luckily i also have a couple of spare pillars along with decent replacement front guard etc kicking around so probably going to be ok for parts so long as further damage hasn't been done by the wheel under the car/to the steering etc when it went bang.

Cheers,

Al
 
Al,
sorry to read about your drama. Not a pleasent experience having a failure like that at speed :shock: ! I thought that the lugs ripping off my de dion elbow mid corner at 50mph was bad! Luckily I only blocked a minor road. Must have a look at the state of mine next week. Best of luck with the repairs and I hope it doesn't shake your confidence in the car.
Regards,
Dave
 
Glad you're Ok, things like that are very scary.
I have had one occasion where a bottom joint pulled out of the leg, with similar results to yours. The first thing that needs to be said is that retaining ring is no such thing, it will not hold the joint in place. It's only function is to tell you that you have pressed the joint all the way home. If you look at the other side if the joint is moving in the leg then the ring will be out of its groove, although TBH I'd replace that side too. This is why I never heat the legs to fit the joint, and I never grind off some of the splines so that it fits easier, which I have also seen done. (Strangely enough by an Australian working in the UK. I wonder if he's gone back home......)
Get yourself another leg and fit a new joint to that. Throw the leg and joint from yours in the scrap.

Incidently that "new" joint looks to only have about half the depth of splines that it should have.
 
:shock:

That really doesn't look like a lower balljoint for a P6.

It would be good to see some close ups of the joint and the aperture in the leg.

Hope the spoilers are ok :)

Richard
 
holy shitcakes Al.

ring, sms or PM me if you need a hand.

The Carby guy let me know of a few mechanics that may be able to help out on the repairs if you need go-to people. Hopefully insurance covers everything (I'm sure they will).
 
Hiya,

Looks like you didn't have to brake that hard to get a KFC bucket - was there a special offer on?

Glad your fine, cars mend.

Obeaston
 
Cheers all, I'm going to take a swing past the garage it has been towed in to tomorrow afternoon to see how it's looking and what sort of extent of damage there is underneath.

Will try to take some more detailed pics of the ball joint and pillar to see if we can confirm if it's the wrong part/incorrectly fitted/damaged pillar during fitting etc.

Spoilers are indeed unscathed (or at least they were when it was put on the truck and headed off), and it would take a far more severe turn of events to turn me to drastic things like eating from KFC.. :)
 
I don't even think Australia has the Bucket anymore at KFC.

Mind you, the last time I ate KFC the years still started with a 19.
 
Okay, dropped in to see how things are looking this afternoon - wasn't able to see all that much more without shifting the wheel out of the way which we didn't want to do until after the insurance assesor has been.

I was however able to confirm that it looks like the swival pillar has taken the brunt of the damage and appears bent at the top, which is good as the steering link looks fine aside from probably needing a new joint and there doesn't seem to be anything in the way of damage to the base unit.

I wasn't able to get at the bottom of the pillar to see if it appears damaged at this stage since we weren't moving the wheel but i did take a couple of closer pics of the joint that has failed and also the one on the other side.

First off the one on the other side. To me this looks not to be fully pressed in either and is shifting out of the pillar too. I can't see any signs of damage on the outside of the pillar but the positioning of the joint definately does not look right to me. Would you guys agree?

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Now for two shots of the ball joint that failed, one with flash on and one without.... I have my own suspicions of what the irregularily spaced clear blobs are that i have tried to show up better with the flash in one shot but i'll leave those to see if any of you guys have the same thought.....

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The splines on the joint that has failed look pretty badly damaged too..

Your thoughts appreciated.

Cheers,

Al
 
They look like centre punch marks to me, probably an attempt to make it a tighter fit in the leg. As to why as they are normally a real tight fit, so either it is the wrong joint or they damaged the leg getting the old joint out. The joint on the other side is also on its way out, its about half way out of the leg. The garage that fitted them should be standing the cost of the repairs for incompetence.
 
Hello Al,

I agree, the RHS bottom ball joint also to me appears to be not properly seated. Probably because it is on its way out also.

One point that I will make is that both bottom ball joints are not OEM. Now that does not mean necessarily that such parts are inferior, but the point I am going to make is that all parts are made to a specification with boundary values, a minimum and a maximum. Now if the cavity in the swivel pillar has a diameter at the upper end and the ball joint has a diameter at the smaller end, then the interference of the fit will be less than the converse. However, that does not excuse the mechanic who installed the joints of incompetence. Common sense should dictate that in order to remain seated the joint needs to be very tight indeed. Not so tight that the flange that is used to drive the joint into the swivel pillar is destroyed, but not so loose either that the joint can be tapped in with little effort. At a guess I would say that the ball joints where they are meant to seat against the inside surface of the swivel pillar, is on the small side.

Ron.
 
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