Refurbishing front suspension on 79 308. Purchased new ball joints from Superformance. Stock ball joints had castle nuts and cotter pins on upper and lower but Superformance replacements only had castle nuts and pins on top. They supply a Nyloc nut on the ball joints. Novice question I suppose but when assembling the nut spins the threaded stud when attempting to tighten. Is there some secret to getting the nyloc on or do I have to use an impact driver. Jacked up the lower a-arm and everything seems to fit properly but can't tighten nuts.
I don't have experience with your specific part, but usually there are facets machined into the bottom part of the ball joint so you can use a skinny open ended wrench to hold it. The other method is to put your jack under the bottom of the ball joint (use wood or cloth to ensure you don't mar the new part) and jack the part up a bit so that the tapered spline starts to get jammed into its mounting hole a bit, then tighten the nut. After you get the nylock tightened down onto its mating surface even a little bit, the tapered spline ought to hold itself in place. In my limited experience on these joints, if the nut spins when you use a wrench, the impact will just spin it faster.
Use a large set of channel lock pliers to apply force that causes the conic fit of the ball joint to press into the socket of the upright. The problem you are experiencing is the conic fit not gripping into its receiver and the pliers allow you to give it a little mechanical 'help' until the nylock seats. Once the nut seats then the assembly will not spin any more and it can be safely tightened to spec.
I agree with Jhh925, and would add I have had success by inserting the tapered pin into position then seating it with a soft faced hammer. I have also used a regular nut to pull the pin tight, then remove it and replace with the nylon locknut.
I'm about to do the same on my 77 and was looking at those from Superformance. As JHH925 said, there is usually a couple narrow flats and they are usually just below the rubber collar, but you will need a thin wrench. I just place a jack with a piece of wood and put some upward pressure on the joint and tighten. Do the Superformance ones have an allen key on the top of the threaded post? Asking because some high performance aftermarket ones I just installed on my Jeep have that, which makes it easier to hold it from spinning until it gets seated in there.
Get your ball joints here! A lot less money than Superformance! https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=maseratisource&store_cat=0&store_name=maseratisource&_oac=1&_nkw=308 ball joint
Do those fit a 77? Looks like they would, but fitment info isn’t clear. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Ordered. Thanks for the link! Not sure the shock bushings will fit, but we’ll see. Mine are Konis with adjustable perches. But they may have been modified (threaded) as some have done. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Found the solution. Used the castle nut from the top ball joint to synch the stud into wheel without completely torquing it on. Jacked up lower a-arm and then removed castle nut and used an air impact wrench to drive nut close to bottom of stud and then it was tight enough to torque it the rest of the way. Thanks for all the suggestions.
Way late to the party, I would do pretty much the same. Any tapered joint relies on friction at the male/female joint. Machine tools use the same type of joint (Morris Taper) to attach tooling. First rule is to thoroughly clean the mating surfaces so that there is no dirt to interfere with the mating surfaces. A good hard shove will usually engage the parts enough to lock them together. The drag induced by the Nyloc nut can overwhelm the friction in the joint enough to spin the stud. If that happens just use a conventional nut to tighten the joint then replace it with the Nyloc nut just as you did. Glad to see your problem has been solved.
Aside from using a regular nut you could also use a temporary stack of washers under the nyloc to get the cone seated.
maybe i overread it but the solution is pretty simple: do not use a nylock nut to to screw the joint at first but a normal one. Only after you torque it you replace the normal nut by a nyloc. simple but it worked for me for 35 years with any balljoint.
