Out hunting last week, the unthinkable happened as we were driving across a field trying to get to a creek bottom to hunt... I broke a lower ball joint on my truck. there was a loud Snap! immediately followed by the front end of the truck dropping and then a nasty scraping sound as we stopped. Luckily this happened here at 5 miles an hour and not on the highway at 60.

Pretty much pooched, my buddy grabs his gun and starts heading out, looking to find someone to flag down, while I make arrangments for a tow truck with CAA. Then with nothing to do but wait, I start thinking about what I could do, if this happened in a place without cell service, or where and/or when, CAA was not available.

For good or for bad, this is what I came up with, that I would/could do to get mobile again, based on ONLY what I had in the truck at the time. Luckily I have all kinds of crap inthe truck. lol

The jacking and blocking are obviously no problem, everyone is set for that.

I figured I could remove the bottom nut off the lower control arm part of the broken ball joint, and even knowing how much of a pain it is, I had the tools to be able to pound the broken piece out. The top part is simply four 10mm bolts and it is gone.

Searching around, I found the 3/8 X 2-1/2 lag bolts that I used a couple weeks ago to secure a couple logs to my skidoo trailer for piling wood between. They stil had 1-1/2 OD washers on them, which would work pretty sweet to drop down.

Looking around I see some Oak trees, and even though my machete is in the camper (doh), I do have my standard hunting 6" fixed blade buck knife. yeah, it would take some work, but I could hack off a piece a couple/few inches long to screw the lag into.

I had a drill with me, but left it at the camper too, and I was worried that that lag bolt would just crack the piece of wood, so I kept rooting around... I came up with a long shafted narrow guage flat screwdriver, which I figured I could bore a pilot hole into the wood block with, without puncturing my hand or leg more than two or three times...each.

I also found a roll of baling wire, and having several pairs of pliers in my tool kit, figured I could put several twist tied wraps of that around the block to help strengthen it too, and also around the control arm and up through the original boltholes to add a little more strength.

All well and done... except that for anyone who has ever blown a ball joint in motion knows, the very next thing that happens is that the axle pulls out of the front diff, and snaps the snap ring into pcs and drops it and bearing parts all over the ground.

Now I would like to say that I could find all the parts and repack the bearing and replace it with a snap ring from my tool kit but...no. Even though I had a grease gun, the likely hood of finding all the rollers and repacking it successfully were slim to none in a field, and no, I didn't have snap rings either, although I probably could have made a retainer with the wire, but on a rotating axle that mild steel would have disappeared quickly.

So, what I came up with was, that i would pull all the remaining pieces out that I could, slide the axle back in (spline shaft into spline hub), and then I would be ok... except that it didn't take much movement of the tire up and down on the shock and it would have pulled out.

At this point I came up with two choices,
1. secure the front shock/strut, with another block of wood, so it would not be allowed to travel
2. rip the axle right out, and then have a 3X4.

I think either would have worked, although I would have tried #1 first, and possibly tried using some wire, or a ratchet strap to hold the axle in to the diff, although given the rotation of the axle, would have been difficult, had that failed, plan B would have been to pull the axle completely.

I personally think that this would have worked, had it been necessary.

C'mon grease monkeys... critique my thought processes!

pics to follow!