Talbot Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 Strikes me something was a bit like this: and some fresh oil has made it less so. tooSavvy and juular 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juular Posted December 17, 2023 Author Share Posted December 17, 2023 </grumpy> GrumpiusMaximus, Jim Bell, RobT and 28 others 1 30 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alcyonecorporation Posted December 17, 2023 Share Posted December 17, 2023 What the fuck? Did the upright give out? Bottom ball-joint? Are you OK? juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackers Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Oh bottom. Hope you are all OK and get home this side of Christmas. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Jetter Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Where's the wing? tooSavvy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs6C Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Eek! Hope all are OK and it's an easy* fix... juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightBulbFun Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 1 hour ago, juular said: </grumpy> Oh shite!, I hope everyone involved is ok and the car is easily fixed! juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juular Posted December 18, 2023 Author Share Posted December 18, 2023 Right, now I've had a drink and vented a bit. We were out for a drive yesterday and I was having quite a lot of fun with it, in other words it was getting chucked around every corner. Rolled up to a roundabout near Bathgate, saw it was clear and floored it, only to hear a massive bang and what felt like the car bottoming out on the road. Thankfully still had a small amount of control and managed to get it close to the kerb although I was blocking a lane of the roundabout. At first I thought the spring had snapped, but when trying to winch it onto the truck, the wheels splayed out. Fuck. I had to take the wing off to prevent it being chewed up by the wheel, at which point I noticed the brand new bottom ball joint was no longer being a bottom ball joint. Thankfully we're fine, just very rattled. Also massive credit to Autoaid, the service was top notch. Picked up in less than half an hour, and in that time I'd had many calls from them just to check up on us. I'll have to get the wheel off and have a proper look at what happened. I'm particularly confused by this as I checked the suspension over as recently as Friday, including putting a spanner on anything critical just for peace of mind. I'm particularly angry as I was doing passenger rides in this 4 up on Saturday and this could have ended very badly. Trying to be grateful no injuries happened, and so far it appears no damage to the car. Mrs6C, Six-cylinder, Dyslexic Viking and 24 others 5 22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loserone Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 13 minutes ago, juular said: passenger rides Can confirm this is an absolutely superb place to be. Very sorry to hear of the woe but I'm certain the car will be better for it in the end. juular, Lacquer Peel, rm36house and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Jetter Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Glad you're OK, and that it should be fixable. juular and JMotor 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightMegs Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Who made the ball joint out of curiosity? juular, tooSavvy and Datsuncog 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooSavvy Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 😮... New Part has SNAPPED 😯🙀.... juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EyesWeldedShut Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 9 minutes ago, EightMegs said: Who made the ball joint out of curiosity? I thought it was made out of cheese? Seriously, also interested to know this. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobT Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Massive amounts of sad face, but glad you're OK. Shit modern parts strike again. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juular Posted December 18, 2023 Author Share Posted December 18, 2023 The ball joint came from Parts Monster, which I believe are another trading name for PFS parts (Parts for Saab, Parts for Volvo). The joint itself is not marked with a name but I strongly suspect it's a PPS (Professional Parts Sweden) item as most stuff from them tends to be. They are a company specialising in aftermarket classic Swedish car parts. I've only ever had good things to say about PFS and PPS and have used them both a lot. I'll wait till I get the motivation to go do a post-mortem on the joint before speculating what has happened. Lacquer Peel, Jim Bell, outlaw118 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthecapriman Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Man, that sucks! So glad your ok though and the car’s relatively unscathed too. I’ll be interested to see what you come up with regarding the part failure, as I’ve used lots of the same company’s bits on my own Volvo! Can’t say I’ve got any complaints with them so far but this is not good! That could’ve been a whole lot worse. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alcyonecorporation Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 I have a spare wing and ball joint somewhere if you get really stuck. Happy that you and the car are in one piece. juular, Lacquer Peel, outlaw118 and 1 other 2 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juular Posted December 19, 2023 Author Share Posted December 19, 2023 Took me a while to get over myself and have a look at this. I don't really have a conclusive idea as to how this happened, which is worrying me. The cause of seperation itself was easily found. The nut was missing completely. How a Nylock nut became loose and unwound without any warning sign is a concern. Those who know me will hopefully back me up when I say I'm the most fastidious person when it comes to torquing and checking everything I've touched. At first I doubted myself but no, I definitely, without question had this torqued to spec. I've been driving a car when the suspension collapsed before (corrosion) and believe me it's enough motivation to never want it to happen again. Regardless, I checked this on Friday and again on Saturday afternoon after hearing a (completely unrelated) noise. It was there, and it was done up tight. Anyway, I have to just get over it and sort the problem and do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's easy enough to pop it back together with a jack. This time round I'm not taking any chances. I drilled the stud and used a castle nut and split pin as per the original factory set up. Then I put the panels back on. I'm going to speculate as to what happened. I think using a nylock on the bottom ball joint is unsafe because the design of the suspension means that the ball joint is always being pushed out of the hub rather than into it. If the very mild taper on the hub hasn't quite bedded in and isn't stopping rotation of the top part of the joint, then steering inputs could probably unwind the nut. Since it's always under tension as I said, it will keep unwinding the nut as you steer and might not give any warning clunks before it eventually reaches the end of the threads and pops off. I really think that bottom ball joint should have been supplied with a castle nut and split pin as per the factory setup. rainagain, outlaw118, RobT and 41 others 44 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooSavvy Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 Quality... Conscientious... Detached... Objective... Well reasoned explanation. Put an ffinn Castle Nut on, Mr Manufacturer 🤬🤬 Truly glad you're all OK 😉😎 🚙💨 juular, Rustybullethole and High Jetter 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightBulbFun Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 glad the cause was found and an relatively easy fix was able to be done I wonder on the failure mode if theres some way it can be tested in a controlled manner to see if its reproducible? if the suppler is of a reputable sort, im sure they would want to know about this issue before it *really* ruins someones day and their reputation tooSavvy, Rocket88, juular and 1 other 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunny Jim Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 So glad to hear you're both ok and you've managed to sort the car. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronkey Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 It is remarkable how easily nylok nuts loose tension with vibration. In the day job, where it is critical that things don't come undone and the application suits, we use these: https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/technology/. There is a video on the website comparing them with nylok nuts. In this application though it is hard to beat a castellated/slotted nut. Scary stuff and good on you for sharing. tooSavvy, Mrs6C, GrumpiusMaximus and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junkyarddog Posted December 19, 2023 Share Posted December 19, 2023 I've never seen a Nyloc nut undo itself like that!! Terrifying experience for you after all that hard work. Hopefully you can put it behind you and enjoy the fruits of your labour now. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chodweaver Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 This raises a question i posed myself the other day - what happens to the nyloc if the nut gets hot? As if the nyloc softens or even melts, presumably it ceases to lock the thread as intended... juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiny Norman Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 So glad this was nothing more than a brown trousers moment after all the good work you've put into this old girl. juular and mk2_craig 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ETCHY Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 That's bloody scary glad you were OK. You going to feed this back to supplier, as if a castle nut & split pin is better they should perhaps be recommending/ supplying those. Might stop it happening again to others. Old school tech wins again. Cool Volvo BTW. juular 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EyesWeldedShut Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 7 hours ago, chodweaver said: This raises a question i posed myself the other day - what happens to the nyloc if the nut gets hot? As if the nyloc softens or even melts, presumably it ceases to lock the thread as intended... This sort of locking nut are meant to be heat proof. I'm now looking at all the nylon nuts on all the ball joints here and wondering....... chodweaver and juular 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave_Q Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 Nordlock is the only locking nut that actually works. All the others just mean that less torque is turned into clamp force. If there is not enough clamp force between the joint surfaces then there will be slippage under load and any nut will unwind. The reason nordlock works and the others don't is because the 2 layers of the nordlock washer are serrated with a greater angle than a normal bolt thread so the same mechanism that loosens a normal nut stops it loosening. If you're a cool, interesting guy like me you can look for "Junker test" on YouTube to see an accelerated version of how nuts undo themselves under a cyclic load. Adding locking nuts like nyloc where the manufacturer didn't specify one is not a good idea, if the same torque is used you will have less clamp force for a nyloc than a plain nut and it's conceivable in some applications the nyloc could be more prone to unwinding than a plain nut. chodweaver, scdan4, Rust Collector and 6 others 5 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave_Q Posted December 20, 2023 Share Posted December 20, 2023 Note that in each case the actual kN clamp load starts from the same point as they tighten them with some sort of load cell or bolt stretch gauge, if you tightened to a torque then the locking versions would start further down the Y axis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYWav184yic&t=164 Saabnut 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juular Posted December 20, 2023 Author Share Posted December 20, 2023 2 hours ago, Dave_Q said: Adding locking nuts like nyloc where the manufacturer didn't specify one is not a good idea, if the same torque is used you will have less clamp force for a nyloc than a plain nut and it's conceivable in some applications the nyloc could be more prone to unwinding than a plain nut. Strongly agree! I'd feed this back to the supplier, but I'm not sure how much an 'FYI' from a completely unqualified amateur would influence a company making pattern parts. I suppose at least they couldn't claim there had been no previous issues. Dave_Q, tooSavvy and Jim Bell 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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