Yesterday i was out wheeling in the hills around my house. I was in 4 low 1st gear on a flat pice of road and all of a sudden Snap! I open my door and see the drivers side tire in a place that it should not be. I knew that the lower ball joint broke right away.

Luckily we found a somewhat easy way (about 1 mile of whoops and mud) to get to my truck and we also found a tow truck driver that had a sack and drove there. I was about 2 miles from my house on dirt roads.

I broke the ball joint about 3pm, and i finally had the 4runner in my driveway at 9pm.

I only have a few pictures, and they are after i got the lower a-arm out of the dirt on a jack. now i get to fix it In the pic with the coilover you can see the ripped apart c.v. joint and milky oil too.

 

You don't see that everyday.

I imagine that was quite a Snap.

 

Man, I gotta quit being cheap and change mine...

 

Good thing it broke out on the trails and not while you were doing 75 around a curve on a highway! I would R&R the other side too just to be safe.

 

How often should the Bj's be changed? i can't seem to find that in my service manual record thing

 

I am incredibly lucky because i was driving on the freeway a few hours prior to it breaking, and i did the other side already, i just needed my truck so i have been driving it (for a few months) and i forgot to finish the job.

And yes it was quite a SNAP! haha.

 

ive seen a lot of these lately, how many miles do you have on your ball joints??

 

glad you are okay

curious also what kind of mileage yours had on them

 

Well side that broke was the original one so it has 216,500 miles on it. I really would urge people to change them by 200,000. because if it broke on the freeway you may not be able to tell about it.....

And i am trying to fix it now so in the pic with the cv joint, is the cv bad because it pulled apart under the boot? It seems like that should not have came apart

 

I believe they're supposed to be inspected every 15 or 30K, but changed as needed.

 

Oops, I was trying to answer VSU_4runnin's question.

 

Did the ball joint separate or did the bolts snap?

 

the Ball Joint separated. I have everything off, hopefully its back together tonight

 

Been there:





As we dragged it off the trail the upper broke as well, then the break lines, cv, and ABS.

Not fun

 

why the hell didnt you leave it there....it would have been easier to go to the parts store and buy a new lower and throw it in..then baby it off the trail and change the upper....you just amplified the damage by draggin it off the trail....... i say FAIL snowrunnin

 

Looks like broken balljoints add a lot of flex! Sounds like a great YT mod to me!

 

I say when there is a line of rigs behind you and the closest auto parts store is an hour and a half away you move it to the side. I try to be considerate to other people. Plus if i had left it in the middle of the trail people would be much more likely to fuc* with it. I've seen rigs pretty much completely stripped with all the windows broken when they are left in the middle of the trail. No thank you.

 

OH i apologize..i thought you meant you drug it off the trail...as in OFF THE TRAIL like a few miles LOL!!! yea dragging it off the trail was very considerate...and i would have had to stay back with the runner while a buddy went and got parts LOL aint nobody gonna be screwin with my runner

 

sorry lol. I should have been more clear. Just dragged it to the side of the trail.

I did end up sleeping in the rig over night while some buddies of mine got the parts and brought them up the next day. Luckily I have a couple spare cv's. We put the new lower ball joint on and put the upper on as best as we could. (It needed to be pressed in). Then limped back to the highway where i called a tow truck.

 

dannnng that sounds like it was a adventure and a half. talk about a bad trip.