[s-cars] Lower control arm pinch slot - was "How many AAA trucks does it take...?"

[Tom Green]

I know you are pretty knowledgeable on maintenance, Peter, and also
have some help on this one.  But, I still want to suggest getting a  
replace-
ment strut housing with an undistorted pinch slot.  There have been many
cars parted out recently so there must be a glut of struts available,  
so what
can it cost?  You may need a wheel bearing but I would do that if I  
had the
strut removed anyway.  I don't think you can ever trust a strut that  
has the
slot pried opened.  My guess is the bolt was not the proper hardness as
well, but I assume there is too much time/distance from the repair to  
ever
assess blame.  If so, but you have suspicions, I would voice them so the
guilty party knows not to do it again.

Tom

> Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:23:57 -0500
> From: Peter Schulz <pcschulz at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Follow up...Re: How many AAA ramp trucks does it
> 	take...
> To: s-car-list at audifans.com
> Message-ID: <20071107152525.4AF8718000072 at audifans.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Followup to the fiasco last month....
>
> Summary, I'm out of town, the Mrs calls and says that passenger front
> wheel is stuffed in the wheel well.
>
> Fast forward - strut has slipped out of the ball joint on lower
> control arm, pinch bolt is still in place, outer CV joint has pulled
> off the axle and is only held in place by the boot.
>
> I am able to remove the wheel and pinch bolt (which is missing a good
> number of threads AND has an allen head.
> The balljoint boot is torn, but CV boot is intact.
>
> Mike Sylvester helped me ( ok HE did most of the work), get the CV
> joint back on the axle, and we together are able to get the the axle
> back into the wheel housing and  strut re attached to the ball  
> joint...
>
> And Mike notices that the pinch slot on the strut/wheel housing has
> been forced apart at some point in time (the opening is V shaped, so
> evidently it was pried apart.  We have some difficulty in getting a
> new pinch bolt inserted for this reason (opening should be more ||  
> shaped)
>
> At this point we believe that the reason the accident occured was
> because of the pinch slot being forced open, and then trying to close
> it by overtightening the pinch bolt with an impact wrench...
>
> At this time the car is driveable, but I plan on replacing the lower
> control arm with a new one (due to the torn ball joint boot), using a
> vice to close the gap on the pinch slot, etc...but since the car has
> 230 k miles, and I have a spare subframe, I'm going to go all out
> with new subframe bushings, etc, and do this right...(especially
> since its the wife's DD, and she is driving mine the last month)
>
> So head the warning about NOT opening the pinch slot...and if you are
> getting a mystery CLUNK from the front end when in a turn at low
> speed, check the gap on the pinch slot...
>
> HTH
>
> -Peter