by Wes Hairston
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On the evening before the Annual Fall gathering of MAFOA at Roger andBrenda Cutter's place, I convinced my wife to take a ride with me to pick upsome soft drinks (per Roger's request of earlier in the day). I had spentall afternoon tracking down a shorted wire in the connection post going tothe MAP Sensor mounted at the side of the Air Cleaner. New plugs, wires, cap& rotor, as well as setting the timing 3 dozen times didn't seem to getthings right. It would run great a while, then start missing, bucking andspitting. Went though all the drills, but nothing seemed to be wrong. Accidentallytouched the errant wiring while the car was running the idle smoothed rightout. Moved it a bit, the engine started missing - Found YA!!! It took adelicate splicing and soldering effort that left the Four-Banger purringlike a kitten (well maybe an over sexed alley cat).
I had even got out the shop vac and sucked up all the pine needles fromthe carpets, windshield & engine vents, washed the dust off and checkedthe air pressure at all fourcorners. When on the way back home I hear a sickening sound of metal breaking, feelthe left front of the car take a nose dive into the oncoming lane of atwisting two lane road. I had chosen to take the "spirited &challenging" route home thru the park. I was enjoying the sweet soundof the properly tuned engine as it was worked thru the gears, in and out ofa few serious bumps and curves.
It took about three hours and $50 for roll back tow truck to get to meand pull the car from the ditch I had pushed it into to get off the roadwayin a blind curve.
This car was thoroughly inspected two years ago after installation of new struts,shocks, front bearings, calipers & rotors (less than 5,000 miles &several lubrications since). There was no warning & we were quite luckythat there was not oncoming traffic at the time the ball joint broke. Thereplacement cost $18 at the local discount parts store. Disassembly revealedthat the bolt simply snapped, just above ball portion. Old housing waseasily "banged out with hammer" - (top down) from the wishbonearm. Greased the new unit circumference with chassis lube, then pressed itinto the control arm with rig of C clap, piece of pipe with inside diameterlarge enough for new ball joint to fit inside. A solid piece is placed underthe flat round bottom of thenew unit bracing it from below on solid surface. A couple of downward whackswith 2-lb hammer to the piece of pipe (it's around the ball joint bolt,above and in contact with the wishbone arm) should seat it up flush intoplace. Have yet to torque the retainer nut and probably stop in at thealignment shop.
Given the age and 200K plus mileage I'm inclined to credit thisexperience to metal fatigue. Next Spring for the sake of safety I plan tochange out the ball joints in my other cars as a matter of suspensionmaintenance (85 GT 104K & 84 SC 76K miles).