Driving along, on the gravel road, at 60+kph with major washboard... Lost the steering, major fail... I just kept steering to the right, and brought it to a stop. Turns out that I had lost the right A-arm mounting bolt. Not sure if it broke in half, or if it had just spun the nut and dropped the bolt...don't know... Jacked via the right engine cross mount. Had to re-seat the right front drive shaft. Two-foot-kick to the wheel...checked it, two-foot-kick...again...inserted the A-arm and locked it down with my favorite phillips screw driver. Locked it down with a hurk-strap, from the rear, to the front factory tow point. This allowed the shaft to be wrenched to the side, and to allow it to be sinched into place. That's why I love these trucks, try to do this with an F-150... 100kph, all the way to home base. Drove like a complete truck. Just had to be carful around the corners... op:
you Drove home like that! & i thought i was nutZ Close to the same thing broke on my old VW fox, but back wheel Little bit of Rebar that i use to keep in between my front seats got me home (was Jumping Train Tracks when i was 17 LOL!
Canada's Mcguyver strikes again proof you should always have tools and straps in the truck... CAA is for sissies
Spaner ur one mad sob. A screw driver and a strap really u trust that at 100 kph ur nuts but that's y it's so fun to read ur stories
Ha, ha, sounds worse than it was I guess. Chance of failure in the 70km trip I figured was less than 1-in-10,000. Took me 6 minutes to do this fix from stop to start. Then I drove for 10 km, checked the hurk for an extra "click". 10 more, no slack in the retaining strap. Then 40 on the highway, barely got another click into it. The hurk is there just to retain the screew driver and the a-arm is retained by the screew driver; no pressure from one to the other really. Maybe I'll get a pic of it before I replace the bolt so that you can see the configuration. It just really can't fail.
but a screw driver hold that much i guess it does they dont weigh that much and i've pried pretty hard with one i guess it should hold just kinda like a u did what.
shear force right? You'd have to have the shaft chop into three pieces. I guess one cut would leave it able to vibrate/fall out. Not worried at all. Drove around town for a while the next day, ha, ha. I know it "sounds" crazy...but it's not.
Yea, rebar is pretty amazing stuff man. When I was young, I saw my dad do some pretty crazy off-road repairs from a 6' piece, hacksaw, and 3lb mallet. AND, I know why you had a 12incher under the seat starpuss; works real good for that too... Ha, ha...the hay-wire for F-150 off-roaders....he, he..
If I'll be there, I am sure I will be a dead one. If that was some axle problem from a long time? Whatever it would be I must suggest you to give a serious attention to avoid any accident.
Ha, ha...I should have used a bic pen, just to say...he, he Although, with the number of M8s on these trucks, I'm on the lookout for a length of 5/16 cold-rolled to throw into the back of the truck.
So I look under my truck the other day and the nut on that bolt is missing! So I almost had your problem
Duo, mofo... Don't worry, it's a multi-point connection. So, it's not like it puts you into the ditch. Steer into it, and slow down. Wasn't a real big deal. I've had a lower ball fail at speed on a D-50, not the same control loss. The D-50 turned into a onesided lowrider and made a lot of noise; stopped real quick. I've got a cheap 3/8s in there right now but ordered some metric grade 9s with "nylocks"...done and DONE.
Hmm, I guess you might have a catastrophic reaction after all. My A-arm, inner, never hit the ground...slider. Guess it would turn you pretty quick. Never thought of that for others, it came apart, but just slid in-and-out, not up-and-down...
