Jury-rigging my Toy

[Sniper-T]

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!

[bacpacker]

T, I hate to hear you had troubles on your trip. But good on you for taking the opportunity to work on solutions to fix your truck. Pics will help me understand more what you were planning. I haven't worked on front ends in 30+ years. But in general the fix sounds reasonable. I would think blocking and locking everything in place (option 1) would have worked if you could have gotten it tight enough and took it easy on it. Nothing would have held if you pushed it.
Looking forward to see pics.

[Sniper-T]

At a standstill:



Perspective:



As they say in real estate... location location, location...



CAA to the rescue:



The damage:



Notice the lower control arm on the bottom right(covered in grass)... that should be attached about 3/4 way up the right side.

Notice the inner axle boot, top right, with the black marks on the shaft, that's showing the shaft as it is pulled out, and mostly useless.

notice the streak on the flat deck from mid left to low right. That is where the bearing race fell out, and i dragged it out to look at it.

notice a little lump bottom right, that is a clump of bearing rollers, covered in grease. Yep. that bearing was TOAST.

[bacpacker]

You guys have great wrecker service. How many miles did you have on it? Any issues before, or were those the originals? I, like you, love Toyotas. I've had 6 or 7 over the years and all but the current one had 200,000+ on them and never had one go out on me.

[Sniper-T]

lol

that is my 5th Toy in 25 years. Including the untimely death of my last one, the toys total over 2.8 million km combined. Out of that, I never blew a ball joint. (my 84 that I sold to a buddy with 880 000 km, he bought for his son, who drove it for 300 000, then turned it into an ice racer, then into a dune buggy. Even though the body has changed, it is still basically original, and has 1.3 mill km on it. original powertrain, frame, everything... other than the consumables (brakes/body/shocks, etc)

The closest NAPA store, in business at that location for 11 years, never, not once, ordered a ball joint for a toy. they stock them for just about every chevy/dodge and ford.

I have a plus membership, which gives me a 100 mile window(ish) - 160km. the closest service location available was 60km away. and he was on a call at the time. so it was a 4-1/2 hour wait for him to get there.

In spite of, and in part because of the paint job, I got a sweet deal on this one. it is a '98 and I bought it on Christmas eve in 2010 with 87000 km (52500mi) original on it, owned by a kid who never, not once, drove it out of the city. It was lowered with 13" wheels on it, which was quickly rectified. It currently has 263000km (160000ish mi) and it has most certainly put through it's paces. lol

[Possom]

3 words. Solid axle swap.

[Sniper-T]

meh!

had solid axles on my first two 84, 85. much prefer independant, even though it is more moving parts.

again, I have NEVER had front end issues, unless they were directly driven by my own carelessness. until now, that is.

[Possom]

Street and light 4x4 I agree IFS works just fine. I use Toyotas as play toys. Crawling up the rocks an IFS just won't cut it.

I think solid axle is a little easier to rig on the trail if something breaks though.

I think you did pretty well figuring out how to rig the ball joint to get at least to cell phone service.

[Sniper-T]

Street and light 4x4 I agree IFS works just fine. I use Toyotas as play toys. Crawling up the rocks an IFS just won't cut it.

I think solid axle is a little easier to rig on the trail if something breaks though. .

Not the point of the post... but In this situation I would agree. however, in my situation, I couldn't necessarily fashion a new solid axle front end from what I had...

...I think you did pretty well figuring out how to rig the ball joint to get at least to cell phone service.

Thanks. but you seem to have some decent mechanical knowledge... what else could you recommend?

[ak474u]

Maybe a come along to cinch all that stuff back together? I bet it would be fun to do without it because of all that spring tension in the front end. Obviously, you could pull the axle out completely if you had to, it endangers the front transfer case either way you go.