ballstud castle nut torque value

I reassembled one side of the suspension last night. The FSM says the upper and lower ballstud nuts are to be tightened to 120lb-ft. I noticed later that the Haynes book says 83 lower and 65 upper. Which one is right? Hope I didn't do any damage, I was following the FSM procedure.

the 94 FSM has the incorrect torque values specified.  Not sure about other years.

Upper ball joints nuts (7/8" socket): 61 lb ft.  Tighten until the torque wrench "clicks", then continue rotation until the next notch in the nut comes clear for the cotter pin to go through the knuckle. Do not exceed 60 degrees of additional rotation.

LH/RH lower ball joints nuts (15/16" socket): 83 lb ft.  Tighten until the torque wrench "clicks," then continue rotation until the cotter pin is cleared.  Do not exceed 60 additional degrees.

Thanks. I love it when the official documentation is wrong! I backed them off and re-torqued as specified. It seems ok, hopefully no permanent damage done...

thanks!

aw man i never do stuff right,. i pull hard on the wrench till i fart, then use the next cotter pin hole,.
works for me everytime,.

Nick When you farted, didn't that make an auxiliary hole available for the cotter pin?

Haha!

I think I may have broken something.

Now that I've assembled the other side and can see what it's supposed to look like, the first one I did with the wrong torque value is definitely different. The threads on the upper ball stud shaft are pulled through significantly further on that side and the boot is much more compressed. I used 3 washers on that side to take up the slack to get the cotter pin lined up with the castle nut than on the correct side where I only used one. (1/8" difference)

I wonder if this is a problem or not. Obviously I either crushed the shaft on the ball joint or expanded the hole in the steering knuckle. Replacing the ball joint at this point wouldn't be a big issue, but again, I'm not clear if this is a problem.

Well, the simple/cheapest ($18) thing to do here would be to replace the upper joint and see if it sits properly. If not it'll be off the pick-n-pull for a knuckle.

Update- it did mangle the steering knuckle. The balljoint stud is a lot harder than the knuckle, so it essentially reamed the hole out.

I got a replacement knuckle and swapped it out along with a new upper ball joint, and all is well now.

lamune wrote:

I got a replacement knuckle and swapped it out along with a new upper ball joint, and all is well now.

you must have really been reefing on that ball joint nut,.

Is the replacement knuckle used?