Just finished the passenger side lower ball joint, and ran into a question. When I torque the nut to the correct setting, what do I do if the hole for the cotter pin is covered up?

Obviously the nut has to be moved a bit, either a touch looser, or a touch tighter. Is it very important which way I go? I went with a bit tighter. But it actually took a pretty significant amount more torque to fully expose the cotter pin hole.

Just want to make sure that over-torquing it that much isn't going to mess up my ball joint or tie rod end.

 

Unless you hate the person responsible for replacing the ball joint next time it fails I would run it loose

 

Always better to go tighter .

From what I learned long ago.

When you loosen the nut it can allow slight movement

Enough to make a difference who can say.

My luck it would be enough to fall apart.

 

Ok, thanks.

I ran into this with the tie rod end on the other side. I guess what's happening when you tighten down the nut, is that you're pressing the joint in. Right?

If, so long as I'm not pressing it just way, way too far in, the only "issue" is that it'll be harder to pop out next time?

I think I'm pretty close to correct torque with the ball joints, but with the tie rod ends, I'm not as sure. I didn't have the right size socket for the castle nuts, so I had to just guess on torque, for now, with a box wrench.

I noticed that it's really hard to tighten, but once you get it to a certain point, if you then back it off, the nut will be loose when you tighten back down to where you stopped. So I guess it pressed the joint in that far, and now you kinda have to go farther to get the nut tight again. I didn't feel comfortable having it "loose", but held in with the cotter pin. So I had to tighten it down a bit more.

So...can this cause anything bad? Or does it just make it harder to get separated next time? I just want to make sure nothing is going to explode. I have 1 hour of dirt road, then another hour on the interstate before I'd make it to an alignment shop, and don't want any "surprises" along the way, if I did something wrong.

Thanks.

 

You won't cause any damage tightening it a bit past the torque spec. You should NEVER loosen the nut to line up the holes. Always tighten to line up cotter pins. That applies for all applications, not just the ball joints on these trucks. If you buy OEM ball joints they should last another 200,000 miles. I'd rather deal with a stuck ball joint 10 years from now than risk a ball joint coming apart driving down the road.

 

Yeah, defintely. Cool, thanks.

The old ones seemed fine, except they were leaking and ugly, and were the originals. 189,000 miles. Not that I know what a good joint feels like compared to a bad joint, but once I had them off the truck, they moved fine and seemed fine.

But it's peace of mind, and now my front end is nice and dry and clean looking.