87 prelude lower balljoint probs

Hi there,

My girlfriends car is an 87 prelude. This sunday, the
balljoint popped on the driver side. It shredded the
inner CV boot in the process, but that is not why I am
here. We have had the car apart several times, to do
trannie/clutch related work. The problem is, the lower
ball joint on the driver side is obviously not OEM, and
does not have a nut on it that can accept a cotter pin.
The stud is not OEM size, so I can't even go to honda to
get the nut.


It is a Nylon locking nut, and the even funnier thing is
that it takes a 3/4" socket to take it off. (Standard
socket on an import?? should be metric, no?)

Anyways, I have searched up and down this city for a fine
thread Nylon locking nut of the same size, to no avail. Nobody makes it, according to all the bolt guys here. I
even talked to a manufacturer, and he said he could do it,
but I would have to buy 10000 of them....

My question is, does anyone have any bright ideas as to
I could fasten the old nut (or a new non-locking one)
without actually replacing the balljoint? I was thinking
of drilling a hole in the ball joint stud to make my own
cotter pin hole. Would that work?

How about my even more desperate solution, spot weld the
nut to the ball joint stud. Then if we ever have to do the
balljoint, we'll just have to chisel off the weld, maybe
have to cut the old ball joint. (and replace it at that point).

The car has 200k kms on it, so we don't want to spend a
tonne of cash on it, any ideas would be welcome! (other
than just "replace the ball joint". I am looking for
something a little more creative...)

t

 

first of all, here is a free pdf 732 pg shop manual for your car. i have the
same car
http://www.pauldesign.ru/honda/shopmanual.html



if i were you, i would take that nut off then take it to a store like home
depot or a good hardware store and find out the exact size of that nut. then
go to http://www.mcmaster.com/

they sell all kinds of industrial fasteners. if you still cant find what you
need. i would buy a die for that stud, thread the die on , then drill a hole
in that threaded stud to accpet a pin. make sure the die is threaded past
the stud so that if you deformed the threads in anyway, the die will fix
that when u unthread it. also you can try loctite and two nuts with a lock
washer in the middle. sounds like somebody put the wrong part on the car