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Pictures 4-8 of 8:
5: I was curious why these were nonreplaceable and here's my answer -- the UCA is formed up and over the top plate. We all knew this already, it was just an interesting photographic challenge to get a picture of the joint between the dissimilar metals.
6: The liner with the ball and cap removed. Now we can see how this joint failed -- the plastic liner wore out and the ball was bearing directly on the UCA metal. You can't see it from my picture, but the plastic liner is feathered towards the edge, but then cracked off where it gets too thin. There's a fair amount of metal to go in the UCA, so we're not talking imminent failure or anything.
7: And here's what caused the joint failure -- the ball itself -- after I got it out and cleaned all the grease off. Notice the pitting and rust. The end that goes into the knuckle shows some machining, but the rest is this nasty, unmachined, rusted part. That roughness and rust grit is probably what ground away the plastic liner.
8: And finally, here's the entire ball piece itself, along with a few other pieces. I've included this picture to show that the most exposed part of the joint, the threads, are not rusty.
Sorry about some of the blurry pictures, I didn't want to take the expensive camera down in the shop.
I don't think this joint rusted after assembly since only the non-machined part shows any hint at all of rust. Which leaves me with a few questions:
* Is this sort of construction with a rough, rusty casting for the force-bearing part common?
* And, has anybody else opened up their old ball joints to see what kind of wear was inside and what caused it?
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