Ha ha how long do yall think this will hold? On Saturday afternoon I heard a loud "clink" and my two front wheels went in opposite directions. The ball joint that connects my right steering piston to the steering knuckle had snapped. Beat it out in the mud with a monkey wrench and a 10 lb sledge which we had cuz we were breaking up concrete. Called my mechanic and he said the "traditional" way to fix this is to get a shorter ball joint from a dump truck and have a machine shop thread it onto the longer stub from the hoes ball joint. I have no aversion to doing it that way except that it broke Saturday afternoon and where the heck was I going to find an open truck place and machine shop by Monday morning? So I asked my mechanic if I could weld it and usually he has a straight answer, like "go for it it'll be fine" or "don't do that that's dumb". In this case he said "I dunno it might work". Driving home we caught the old machinist dude leaving the shop at 3 on a Saturday afternoon. Asked him what he thought and he said "I dunno it might work, use these stainless steel sticks and cool it down slowly". Gave me four sticks. This guy also tells me when my big ideas are dumb so "go ahead and try it" instills hope. Cut the joint open, got the ball out, tacked it with two points one on each side, beveled it out good to the center on each sidei with a grinder, and filled it with several passes of the stainless rod being careful to get all the slag out between passes. Threw it in a hot toaster oven to let it cool down. Ground it back to some kind of round and put it back into the tie rod or whatever you want to call it and welded it shut again. So what do yalls think? Think I'll be able to work tomorrow and for the next few days? Or is it just one big heat affected zone that'll snap off as soon as I try to steer n the mud? Worst case it'll snap off and I'm back to square one looking for a Mack ball joint on Monday. But maybe I'll be able to work. I'm hopeful cuz there was corrosion evidence that it had been cracked for a while and finally broke all the way yesterday. Hopefully a solid weld is stronger than a half cracked bolt. I'll post up tomorrow evening with the results.
Ha ha appears to be holding. If it breaks you know I will be posting up in short order complaining my ass off.
Might consider greasing it occasionally.......... Joe H
No zerks unfortunately. Sometimes I squirt spray oil up in there with the straw, about the best I can do. I kinda like this silicone spray lube that dries all gooey, seems like a good option for things that should have grease but no functioning zerks. Like both the buckets on this hoe.
I think you've got that right!