sirdigalot
Member
- Joined
- December 31, 2014
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 1
- City, State
- Central Florida
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1997 Ford Explorer
So at costco the other day, i was reversing out of the parking spot and the beast makes an almight metallic crack/bang sound and the brakes went a bit soft.
the symptoms were weird, driving straight, the brakes were soft but ok, turning left they were the same turning right my foot went to the floor and it was slow to stop.
a physical inspection (on red hot Florida black asphalt) saw no signs of line breakage, now physical suspension issues the disc was in its normal shape, very weird.
Also i could hear (and smell) the brakes binding a little on the left side where the noise was and the did pull to the right while under braking, quite hard.
Also when driving over uneven surfaces such as road construction the car "floated" is the best way to describe it.
after gently getting home i inspect more and i notice the wheel i heard the noise from was at somewhat more of a camber angle then normal... AH-HA! i thought ball joint!
so i take the following day off to fix that issue.
only it wasn't
the good news is i found out what it was, and it is a warning to buying second hand cars i guess.
the wheel hub on the AWD/4WD is held on by 3 bolts, in a triangle pattern, i noticed when i got the pull hub from car bit, that one of the bolts had physically snapped! This in itself would not have been a show stopper right?
well, it appears who ever the genius was who owned the beast before me, did not put in one of the other bolts either! the whole had a light layer of rust on it and the threads in the hub, so in effect my entire hub and wheel was being held by one very plucky and brave bolt! no wonder it felt strange!
sadly that also meant i needed a new hub as i was not about to arse around with drilling out the snapped bolt.
the other issue is that it is nearly impossible this side fo a breakers yard ( none of which are within short driving distance of my house) to find these bolts! the regular auto parts store basically do not stock any special bolts for most cars, they have generic crap that is for none critical applications - i found that out when my water pump took a dump - and the online kit was wrong too!
so in the end i went to the Ford dealership, and asked them, it took them about 30 minutes of searching on their computer, because 1997 was so long ago *LOL* and they found the kit, which they had to order special (i mean really Ford all about cost cutting but you change the spec of bolts for all models? grrr)
i ordered extras ( at Ford prices!) because i do not want to deal with this again.
i am interested as to why the other bolt snapped, i am assuming unusual loads and flexing over time ( i honestly did not think about checking hub mounting bolts) or because they knew it was only two bolts they really over torqued the other ones to make up for it ( dumb) which lead basically to fatigue failure and shear stress ( it snapped at exactly the mating face of the hub assy. and the suspension arm)
since i had the whole front end apart anyway i replaced the ball joint since i had the spare and i do not know how old that one was.
so yeah, fun day.
the symptoms were weird, driving straight, the brakes were soft but ok, turning left they were the same turning right my foot went to the floor and it was slow to stop.
a physical inspection (on red hot Florida black asphalt) saw no signs of line breakage, now physical suspension issues the disc was in its normal shape, very weird.
Also i could hear (and smell) the brakes binding a little on the left side where the noise was and the did pull to the right while under braking, quite hard.
Also when driving over uneven surfaces such as road construction the car "floated" is the best way to describe it.
after gently getting home i inspect more and i notice the wheel i heard the noise from was at somewhat more of a camber angle then normal... AH-HA! i thought ball joint!
so i take the following day off to fix that issue.
only it wasn't
the good news is i found out what it was, and it is a warning to buying second hand cars i guess.
the wheel hub on the AWD/4WD is held on by 3 bolts, in a triangle pattern, i noticed when i got the pull hub from car bit, that one of the bolts had physically snapped! This in itself would not have been a show stopper right?
well, it appears who ever the genius was who owned the beast before me, did not put in one of the other bolts either! the whole had a light layer of rust on it and the threads in the hub, so in effect my entire hub and wheel was being held by one very plucky and brave bolt! no wonder it felt strange!
sadly that also meant i needed a new hub as i was not about to arse around with drilling out the snapped bolt.
the other issue is that it is nearly impossible this side fo a breakers yard ( none of which are within short driving distance of my house) to find these bolts! the regular auto parts store basically do not stock any special bolts for most cars, they have generic crap that is for none critical applications - i found that out when my water pump took a dump - and the online kit was wrong too!
so in the end i went to the Ford dealership, and asked them, it took them about 30 minutes of searching on their computer, because 1997 was so long ago *LOL* and they found the kit, which they had to order special (i mean really Ford all about cost cutting but you change the spec of bolts for all models? grrr)
i ordered extras ( at Ford prices!) because i do not want to deal with this again.
i am interested as to why the other bolt snapped, i am assuming unusual loads and flexing over time ( i honestly did not think about checking hub mounting bolts) or because they knew it was only two bolts they really over torqued the other ones to make up for it ( dumb) which lead basically to fatigue failure and shear stress ( it snapped at exactly the mating face of the hub assy. and the suspension arm)
since i had the whole front end apart anyway i replaced the ball joint since i had the spare and i do not know how old that one was.
so yeah, fun day.
