sheared the bolt right off actually, the front lower balljoint on my '92 gs. Anyone ever hear of this happening, seems rather unacceptable to me.

Fortunately i was only doing about 2mph at the time. I hear a metallic 'snap,' the left front end drops about 5 inches, and i get out and see the fender squished on top of the tire, which was pointing in an obscene direction.

Whats the deal with this, it could kill people. It happened to my uncle once in his old civic and freaked him out pretty good.

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i agree that it is not acceptable...did you modify anything to contribute to the problem though? even so...thats pretty f*ckin scary

 

just the b20 swap and all else was stock. I was just on my way out of my friends driveway and i got about 20' and snap. its a weird way for it to go, while under no real stress, but it saved a lot of damage, and maybe a life or two.

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I assume you have well over 100k on ur car. Since the balljoints on the integra are sealed, they should actually be replaced every 60k miles. I have never changed mine on my integra yet because i use a hypodermic needle to put greese in them when i do oil changes. You have to get the water out of the boot or else it will rust. I bought a 1992 beretta in august and it had 180 k on the original ball joints and always heard a noise when i hit a bump. Luckily i know what i am doing so i jacked up the front of the car and wiggled the tires and noticed a lot of slop. So i drilled out the old ones (Pain in the ***) and put the new ones in. 25 bux each at autozone.

If i were you, i would replace the other one out at the same time. Stuff breaks on cars, even if it is something that doesnt allways go, it will go eventually.

 

Same thing happened to me last week...was in the school parking lot went about 20 ft and ball joint snapped. My tire was propped up on the fender justl like yours, and it pulled the cv joint out of the transmission. 450 canadian fix

 

geez, thats my identical story. what did just the new joint itself cost? I intend to go back and brave the cold tomorrow, and pull the unit out myself.

Might be worth replacing the other side too if these bolts are getting brittle with age. Be nice to know if they improved the quality of the metal used in later generations. I DO NOT want this to happen again, and now, quite frankly, i'm paranoid of old hondas.

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Yeah i'm pretty paranoid to and i think it cost like 130 canadian. My car is in the paper tomorrow getting sick of all the fixes. Was you car screeching whenever you turned the wheel? Cuase thats what mine did when it was cold out and now it doesn't since that mishap. Guess i should have looked into it

 

screeching, not sure about that, there may be a sound in the steering when its really cold. 130$, was that the dealer unit? I priced an aftermarket one for 25$, he said the top line one would run 80$.

I called acura customer relations and he said there is only about 200$ worth of claims on this model car. pretty reliable record i guess. They have heard about the front joints popping, but very uncommon. So there certainly is no recalls on it.

I'm selling my integra off in 2 months (when this winter is over). Fully loaded, expensive part cars, are not good to own when they're old.

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balljoint should cost around 45-50 bucks oem.

you probably cant replace it yourself since you need a press to press out and in the new one.

it does and will happen especially if you dont inspect your balljoints. a torn rubber boot will cause the grease to leak out and contaminents in.

the balljoint is what actually holds your car up. lowered cars add more stress to an oem balljoint since the car is sitting at an abnormal angle.

replace both of them at the same time.

good thing you werent going very fast, it is very dangerous.

usually if its that bad that its about to break you should be able to tell via noise, feel it in the steering wheel when going over a bump or pot hole.

should be about 50 bucks or so for installation, get an alignment when done, and if your axle got yanked out like the above mentioned, make sure you check tranny fluid.

 

no no, it was the balljoint stud that snapped, the joint itself was fine. I'm going to inspect the other side tomorrow to see if there are at least some cracks forming on the stud, there wouldn't be any other way to tell. Its working perfect, and then 'snap', you're driving on the undercarriage.

The axle merely 'pulled apart', via the inner cv joint. the rest was still stuck in the tranny, sealing it.

25$ cdn for a cheap aftermarket joint, the next model up was ac delco for 90$, and then there was another called Moog, i think, for over 100. Probably be at least that much from acura.

So I bought the cheap one, as i'm selling in 2 months , i did the job myself this aft, in the sub zero temperatures. Took about 2-3 hours. I simply, popped the entire knucke assembly off, took it inside, hammered out the old joint, used a large vice, with a large socket piece to press the new one in.

Voila, a 450$ job for 25$. ha, hope this one last for 2 months, its got a 90 day warrantee on it.

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Yeah, if you have air tools, or work in a shop, or know a guy that works in a shop with air tools, they pop right out with an air hammer. If not, you can torch it out. That's what a friend of mine did, just make sure you don't heat up the wheel bearing, because the grease will start boiling, and prematurely cause the wheel bearing to destroy itself.

 

well i was able to just knock it out most of the way with a mini sledge hammer, and then finished it off with a regulsar hammer. The fact that most of the stud was gone is probably what made it so easy to do this.

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Well, i had a stunning revelation about half an hour ago. I was all dissapointed with honda over their crappy ball joint stud til i remembered somthing. About 2.5 years ago when i actually bought the car (for 750$ ), i took it to a garage for a safety, and the mechanic said i needed a new left lower balljoint (this one). I took a look and pointed out to the dummy that the balljoint was fine, but the castle nut was loose. I don't know how long, prior to my ownership, it was driven like that, but it was what likely caused stress on the stud, and it only now gave in.

check it...

a jack assisted recreation of what i found when i stepped out of the car (except it was lower)


parts don't quite line up


almost looks like some kind of burn mark around the fringe of the stud

 

OoOooOoOooO....ouch for the car...

 

well, with further research, it seems the these broken studs aren't all that uncommon. Turns out that when these lower joints get really old they sieze up, rather than get loosey goosey (like the upper joints do). So when the lower joint "needs" to move, it won't, and the stress goes to the stud, then eventually ..!SNAP!. And if it happens on the freeway, you may do a little sideways driving action.

So, i just checked my other lower joint. Not just a boot inspection, as it can be decieving. Popped the stud right out so i could see that the joint had proper movement and wasn't seized. It was mint. So i figure the other boot must have gotten a little worked (when it was driven with a loose nut) and then some road guck got in and siezed it up.

So if you have a high milage or old honda, i suggest getting the lower joint popped out and inspected. Not just a visual dust boot inspection. And if you're hearing a squeakey sound from that area when turning, it might already be siezed. You may be the next casualty.

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You know, this has been going around a lot lately, maybe its like a car flu....

i saw another thread about a week ago about this happening to someone, and it happend to my friend's prelude, luckily he was only going about 10mph...