Knuckle pinch bolt: caution

[Bert]

I had a wheel come off unexpectedly last year; lower ball joint popped out of the knuckle. Someone had used an ordinary soft steel nut and bolt to retain the ball joint. The nut had stripped, the bolt had deformed and worn and this slop allowed the ball joint to release. I put in a scavenged and proper pinch bolt but only a regular grade nut. Here we are 6 months later and the joint is loose again.

Pinch bolts and the corresponding nut are very specific items and must never be substituted. They are splined at one end and all components are made of very hard steel.

The good news: Festy and Aspire use the same bolt and on a hunch I visited a Kia dealer yesterday and bought pinch bolts for an 01 Rio. These are the very same!

[bravekozak]

You musr be psychic. Those are the exact same bolts I ordered from Four Green for myself, on the last order.

[WmWatt]

Bolts come with a hardness indicator on the head. There are two standards. One uses a number, the other uses a mark. I don't remember what they are but they can be found on the Internet. The Kia bolts will have it and any replacements should have the same indicator.

[htchbck]

Metrics use a number, Standards use the marks. On the marks you just count them and add 2, so one with 3 marks is a grade 5, and one with 6 is a grade 8.

[Bert]

You musr be psychic. Those are the exact same bolts I ordered from Four Green for myself, on the last order.

Kia on Bank Street in Ottawa wanted almost $20 for 2 bolts and 2 nuts. How much from Four Green?

[Bert]

Metrics use a number, Standards use the marks. On the marks you just count them and add 2, so one with 3 marks is a grade 5, and one with 6 is a grade 8.

Under no circumstance should anyone substitute a 'jobber' bolt for this function regardless of the stamped hardness. Imperial uses a series of radiating lines to indicate hardness and metric (all Festy parts) uses colour or a number. 8.8 is ordinary steel. The pinch bolt is M10 size 1.25 thread turns per mm and stamped with a hardness of "10" and the proper nut is coloured "black".

[bravekozak]

The LCA bolts (MB45534098A) were 41 cents each + shipping. I hate to say it, but you got ripped off. Fastivaca ordered four bolts also! I will order a whole bunch of them on the next group buy.

[Bert]

The LCA bolts (MB45534098A) were 41 cents each + shipping. I hate to say it, but you got ripped off. Fastivaca ordered four bolts also! I will order a whole bunch of them on the next group buy.

Are you sure we're talking the same thing? The only bolt that goes through the LCA is at the end opposite the lower ball joint. And it's just a generic bolt.

[bravekozak]

Yes these are the high grade, splined just under the head, bolts. Did your price include 13% tax? If it did, then you got royally ripped off. How come you weren't in on the group buy?

[WmWatt]

BTW one time when I had a pinch bolt out I didn't put it back in again tight enough and the nut came loose. I found out when the car made a knocking sound when it went over a speed bump. I tightened the nut and have not had the same problem again. I now tend to use a torque wrench and follow the Haynes manual recommedations for tightness of nuts.

[Bert]

BTW one time when I had a pinch bolt out I didn't put it back in again tight enough and the nut came loose. I found out when the car made a knocking sound when it went over a speed bump. I tightened the nut and have not had the same problem again. I now tend to use a torque wrench and follow the Haynes manual recommedations for tightness of nuts.

When you deal with cars of unknown history (the eccentric farmer that had the car before me, and had bought it for his wife, and from somebody else, was hell-bent (for about 10 years worth of tinkering) on replacing every nut and bolt and screw in that car with Imperial equivalents and more and more I am discovering that he nearly succeeded) you put aside politeness and torque wrenches when trying to correct a mis-behaving part. I have only so much hand strength (lots, I'm only 60 years old) to tighten a 14mm nut with a standard 1/2" drive Pimps & Queers (Simpson-Sears) Craftsman ratchet that I could give so much as a GD about 'foot pounds'. Yesterday the ordinary-grade nut stripped well before the knuckle started to tighten up. And I was already prepared to use a breaker bar for extra leverage. Now I have to saw or grind off that stripped nut ('blue wrench' would ruin the ball joint) and start all over again. Lesson learned. I should have bought a dozen of those hardened M10 1.25 flanged-head nuts.
I strongly prefer that my car goes where it's pointed and not decide on it's own to wander off every time I change gears.

[Bert]

Yes these are the high grade, splined just under the head, bolts. Did your price include 13% tax? If it did, then you got royally ripped off. How come you weren't in on the group buy?

I hope you noticed that I have complimented you quite a few times for discovering (FourGreen) this inexpensive and exhaustive stock source of Festy parts. Only I don't usually look around for things like pinch bolts until the one I have on hand fails. There are inherent problems with trying to DD 20 year old cars that no one stocks parts for anymore. Great hobby, if you don't need the car to go to work everyday. I was impressed no end the other day to be able to get an LCA via overnight express for $50. I have 3 of these cars and all are functional and I also have all the drivetrain parts off 2 Aspires and an 93LX ducked away in my garage but guess what? Most of the spare pinch bolts in there have rounded off corners or jobber nuts.

[bravekozak]

Bert, I will call Ali to honor my $400 credit. Let me know how many bolts you need for all your cars. I just went through putting in all the bolt/nut part numbers. I will be ordering some for myself too. This hardware is ultra cheap as long as you shop at Tops Friendly Supermarket and smile at the border guard. The guy at the Rainbow bridge didn't even get out of his chair Wednesday. He just asked me to pull up a little further and slide open my passenger door. He said to have a good day. The negativa ions coming from the Falls keeps them in a good mood. Thanks for all your support and compliments.

[Bert]

Bravekozak, you have gone to a lot of trouble 'brokering' parts for forum members and dealing with the Korean connection. I feel loathe to impose on you in such a way. I did order trailing arm bushings from 4Green a few months back and they definitely were inexpensive and the stuff was here in a week. I do however have a hard time dealing with Russian and Filipino parts lists and diagrams and I'd love it if that stuff were made a bit easier to understand.
By the way I have sufficient number of pinch bolts for now. I'm seriously toying with the idea of buying a newer car (Echo or Yaris) , jettisoning 2 of the Festys (2 for one sale!) and concentrating on the one that has been in my family since new as a summer/hobby car. They've been lots of fun for the past 9 years and an inexpensive (but very time-consuming) way to survive being fleeced through a divorce settlement.

[bravekozak]

Sorry to hear that.

Bert, have you ever used Google translate? It will translate on the fly anything that is not a picture, but text.
translate.google.com

Tell Google Translate that you want to translate from Russian to English, and paste in the starting web page.

http://koreacat.ru/kia/groups/0LBEDA01/

Now you are cooking with Mazola!


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Everyone,
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