Rusted trunk ball joint

[walkerp]

Hi all, I’m trying to fix the trunk on my explorer but the ball joints that the trunk struts attack to are rusted and came off with the struts. I’m trying to figure out what to do now and how to replace these ball joints. Here is a picture of one of them: New item by Walker P

 

[dvdswan]

strut ball joint - Google Search

 

[C420sailor]

Finding an actual ball that works shouldn’t be too hard. Measure the other and find one on the net, or cut the assy off a truck in the junkyard.

That would be my plan. Go to a pick n pull and try to pop/cut that whole piece off the hatch. I’d imagine it’s just spot welded. Clean it up, clean up your hatch, weld, paint. Or epoxy it if you can’t weld—gotta do a good job though.

 

[J_C]

I wouldn't expect epoxy to hold that, think you should weld either the same piece from a donor vehicle, or weld on a scrap of metal with a hole and a captive nut behind it to screw a new ball stud into. I mean a generic/universal ball stud of same size, not a part # specific to an explorer. Then again if welding it anyway, could just weld on the ball stud to the plate, or still use the nut too for redundancy.