Ball joint bolt help!!

[tyler2616]

Last night finally got checkers back on road and while driving the ball joint came out the knuckle, what I found was someone had used a regular bolt on the knuckle to hold the ball joint in, which let it slip out. Anyone know what size or length I would need to make a good replacement so the ball joint doesn't slip out again?

[ryanprins13]

Ball joint bolt help!!

Last night finally got checkers back on road and while driving the ball joint came out the knuckle, what I found was someone had used a regular bolt on the knuckle to hold the ball joint in, which let it slip out. Anyone know what size or length I would need to make a good replacement so the ball joint doesn't slip out again?

I think its got a flat spot on it or something odd, but i cannot remember. I bought new control arms a couple years ago which came with new bolts and one stripped the threads before getting to the torque spec. I wanted to buy new ones but ended up reusing the old ones because they were an odd shape. Can you take the one out of your other side to see what it is?

[william]

You can get them for a kia rio at the dealer or junk yard .
The ones that come with the cheap lower control arms are junk. I've striped them very easy.
The oem ones are much better.

[FestYboy]

Iirc they are M8 x50mm grade 10.9 (SAE grade 8)

[WmWatt]

It's the ball joint which has the groove, not the bolt. I made that mistake posting herre once. You have to line up the groove in the ball joint stem(?) with the bolt hole to get the bolt, called the pinch bolt, to go through. The bolt has a "shoulder", ie the end near the head has no threads, and the other end where the threads are is bevelled to help it go through the hole. I think it has a hardness of 8 or 9. Look at the head and count the number of raised notches (if that's a good term) and get a bolt with the same number. It's usually 1 for soft, 2 for medium, and 3 for hard. Hope that's comprehensible.

[FestYboy]

Matt, in metric, the hardness is displayed by a stamped number on the head. The grades you describe are SAE and 3 stripes = grade 5, 6 stripes = grade 8. The metric equivalent are 8.8 and 10.9 respectively.

[tyler2616]

Alright I'll see what I can find out, the other side has some over the counter bolt with no shoulder. So both need replaced. But now the car won't run so I gotta fix that. It never ends.