I was blowing the rivets off some ball joints today when I got a sudden eye openner. The ball joint exploded, I say exploded because it sounded like a 44 mag. went off inside the shop. After the shock was over and everyone was ok I looked at the ball joint and it was dry with rust inside the cup. I have never had this happen before so I thought I would share this as I have done this many times, but may not anymore.
Never seen that before! Most of the time doing ball joints I just use a cut off wheel on a die grinder to cut out the rivets, usually because the places I worked at barely had torches and if they did they were usually empty. Glad nobody got extra pieces of steel in them!
was it a Dodge by chance?..not knocking them, but they had some models having dry, prematurely worn out ball joint problems for a while there...
I saw this happen once before when I worked in my dads shop, we figured it was the moisture in the ball joint expanding, steam is powerful stuff when it has no where to go lol. Glad to here no one was hurt.
Yea it was a 1/2 ton Dodge, and I bet your right on the moisture, I didnt think of that. I have been racking my brain on gas build up but was stuck on nothing in there but rust.
Grease+Oxy=BOOM
You read my mind Tozzi. I was wondering about grease in the area as well. Hard to imagine a ball joint without at least a little lubrication. Unless I am missing something.
Have a Great Day, Brent
