Tonight I completed what has to have been the single worst car repair I have ever attempted: replacing ball joints on my wife's vehicle - a 2002 Nissan XTerra. I was reminded again of the natural enemy of automobiles and those who fix them: RUST. Exacerbated of course by all the salt we use on our roads here in MI in the wintertime.
The rust I found on this truck (and it's truly a truck - it's the SUV version of the Nissan Frontier pickup) was just incredible - in some cases impervious to the heat I applied to get rusty nuts off rusty studs, not to mention impact wrenches and breaker bars. I ended up cutting one nut off, as it was spinning the whole ball joint in its hole. Crazy! It added many hours of work to this task.
I started this project on Saturday morning, and didn't finish it until about 7:30pm tonight (Thursday) what a colossal pain! However, it was completed successfully, and now my wife won't be embarrassed by the rusty hinge sound the old joints made when you turned the wheel or went over bumps. Or shifted too much in your seat. Plus it really isn't safe to keep running with worn out ball joints. So embarrassment yes, but also safety concerns addressed.
It should also be mentioned that it took all that time just to do one side! I bought parts to do both sides (thanks RockAuto.com!), but I'm not doing the other side until the weather warms up - that 35 degree damp with a north wind blowing into the garage that I dealt with yesterday was nasty! It made the concrete I was sitting on even colder!
Special thanks to my Dad, who rescued me on several occasions during all this. He was here helping me with this project every day I worked on it, sitting in that cold garage with me, bouncing ideas around and driving me to Harbor Freight, several auto parts stores, and Tractor Supply when our other car was needed elsewhere. I couldn't have done it without him.
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Go to a motorcycle shop and look for a chain lube by PJ-1. Should be a black/yellow can. Designed for NON-o/ring chains. Ignore the blue can, as that is for 0/ring chains. ( O/ring lube is really a preservative for the outside of a chain, since the inside of the links are sealed with an o/ring. )
This stuff is the BEST PENETRATING LUBE I've worked with in 40+ years. It goes on as a liquid, wicks into tight spaces, and then congeals into a grease. I've seen it do amazing things. I hope it still exists, my latest can is about empty.
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