Ball joint bolts challerger same as triton MN warning

[Turtlewa]

Hi all just wanted to post this up as a warning to check your upper ball joint bolts
Had word from a member of my 4wd club doing a trip with 6 members that his 2010 Challenger had the front wheel collapse in Birdsville entering town and at low speed thank god .....short story towed back to port Augusta to Mitsubishi dealer and was told no warranty due to raised suspension yes and those 3 bolts holding in upper ball joint never touched for new suspension funny thing is the other side was loose also hmmmmm on reading up on this MMA did a recall on Tritions for possible loose upper ball joint bolts not torqued up to spec at factory well well maybe challengers early ones should have been recalled he will be in contact with MMA not taking dealers no warrenty reply and $4000 to fix it
On look at my challenger those bolts don't even have a nut to lock them in underneath ?
He is stuck in Port Augusta at the moment with car waiting on MMA for their side to this

[RHKTriton]

That's rotten luck, but good that the vehicle didn't get written off or kill anyone.

Seems a degree of the 'assume' syndrome happened here. If the suspension has been mucked about with, wouldn't it be good practice to check over all the related components before setting it loose on the roads again?

I would suggest the last party working on the suspension has taken on the liability.

The point on locking nuts is a good one. The use of a few nylock nuts in a few critical areas would greatly enhance safety.

Hopefully the guy gets a good outcome.

[Cowboy Dave]

Those bolts have to come out to change the struts over so they've been touched and put back in when he got his suspension done.

Maybe they were over tightened and that weakened the whole setup? Or they were left loose but took a while to go bad?

Without some sort of metallurgic analysis of the busted bolts (which i assume are lost) you'd never really know what the cause was.

[Lee-thal]

There is also a small circlip on those bolts, and as CD said, THEY MUST COME OFF to remove struts, and the ball joint recall was the Lower control arm, not the Upper,

[snakesoup]

circlip ?? struth ! I don't remember any circlip when I changed my front struts ?? do they all have it ? and where does it sit.? bottom of thread??a little worried now! does clip fall of when bolts get undone??

[Cowboy Dave]

That was my reaction this morning Never seen circlips on the 3 bolts I was thinking of. Hopefully Lee is thinking of something else.

If not, Lee I'll be needing 6 of those circlips please...

[GLRkenny]

My 2015 has little wire clips on two of the bolts, the bolts are different to the ones on my 2012 in the way that they have a groove in place of the last couple of threads to house the clips

[Cowboy Dave]

Are we all talking about the 3 bolts at the end of the UCA nearest the wheel?

Starting to think I should go back and replace the loctite with super glue

[snakesoup]

My 2015 has little wire clips on two of the bolts, the bolts are different to the ones on my 2012 in the way that they have a groove in place of the last couple of threads to house the clips

hi Kenny, so are you saying your 2012 model doesn't have any clips ?

[snakesoup]

mines 2011 and I did not see any clips

[SEJ GLX-R]

I have a 2010 MN and I didn't have any clips either. I hope it wasn't meant to.

Where's Brendan, he would have removed more of these bolts than we could count?

[GLRkenny]

I've done suspension on a few tritons and I've only noticed them on my 2015mn and on a late 2014 pajero, it's quite possible that it's something fitted to the later models.
I didn't realize that they were there on my 2015 and buggered them anyway and didn't put them back on.
You'll know by looking at the bolts whether they are supposed to be there, on the 2015 two of the bolts are different

[Lee-thal]

the upper ball joint on the upper control arm, 3 bolts, 2 of them have these wire type circlips on them,

Most would never see them as unless u are looking u wont know about them, if you just ratchet off the bolts they fly off in all directions, pretty sure they were all MN and PB Challenger.

[SEJ GLX-R]

.....You'll know by looking at the bolts whether they are supposed to be there, on the 2015 two of the bolts are different

Thanks Kenny, all 3 of my bolts are the same and don't have anywhere for a circlip anyway so I obviously never had them.

[Turtlewa]

Anyone with newer model Triton/challenger with clips can you post up some pics

[Cowboy Dave]

Sounds like 2010 models didn't have them anyway. The MLs have been running since 06 without clips and without any big issues.

[ultimate]

I have a 2010 MN and I didn't have any clips either. I hope it wasn't meant to.

Where's Brendan, he would have removed more of these bolts than we could count?

Sorry...I've been a bit awol lately.

I posted this back on Jun 14, 2013

http://www.newtriton.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=13993&p=356232&hilit=ball#p356232

CV's and other drive line components appear to the be the same. The only other difference I have noticed is retainer clips on the ball joints. They are hard to see if you don't know they are there. If you don't remove them before undoing the bolt, you will need to repair the thread.

[SEJ GLX-R]

Thanks Brendan, we're only 2 years behind you.

[Turtlewa]

Thanks Brendan for that pic

Seem like they should have done a recall for those clips to be fitted to previous years models seem thay are fitted knowing those bolts could come loose over time I will be asking MMA about this

[Bazzer87]

Something else to do this weekend!

[Cowboy Dave]

Thanks Brendan for that pic

Seem like they should have done a recall for those clips to be fitted to previous years models seem thay are fitted knowing those bolts could come loose over time I will be asking MMA about this

Yes maybe, except that entirely ignores that the old system worked from 2006 to 2012 on thousands if not tens of thousands of vehicles without problems. Still working on my car as it happens after 6 years and being touched at least twice by ultimate suspension and now once by me.

I've seen maybe a dozen CVs changed on MLs with the old system where those 3 bolts were removed and refitted. None of those lost a wheel either.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the most obvious I'm afraid and in this case the most obvious is not a manufacturing deficiency.

[Turtlewa]

Cowboy
Explain to me why MM would start putting clips on those bolts for looks or to a possible safety issue to retain loose bolts over time to stop them from completely spinning out if they loosed up and not loosing a wheel
At the end of the day we are talking about it people read our post and maybe will check their bolts

[Cowboy Dave]

Probably because they had a small batch where the factory didn't tighten them enough and they went through a recall they didn't want I would have thought.

But until then the system worked fine and they haven't called all the other vehicles back for a refit so you'd have to think they judged them safe.

But yes it wouldn't be a bad thing for people to check them for tightness. I suspect the other problem could be though that people over tighten them and stretch the bolts a bit, creating a weakness for later. One reason why I don't mind using a rattle gun to take things off but will usually tighten by hand instead.

[NowForThe5th]

the other problem could be though that people over tighten them

Exactly. The torque setting for those bolts is quite low. It would be easy to over-tighten them just with a normal ring spanner.

[ultimate]

Locktite is your best friend. We always use it on these bolts whether they have the circlips or not.

Interestingly, Mitsubishi has done away with the three bolts on the MQ. The balljoint is now part of the upper control arm. You have to split the ball joint to get it all apart. It's going to make CV changes a little bit longer in the bush.