Over the weekend I had a bolt on the johnny joint (Currie's) break at the base of the threads, not at a shear point, which destroyed the ball in the joint, the joint housing did not fail. You could see a grease line about 1/8" deep all of the way around the bolt at the base of the threads where it broke. This joint is on the axle end of the wishbone on my 3 link on the front of Yeller.

I've never seen one of these fail before and I'm just wanting to know if any of you have experienced this first hand or if I just got a bad bolt, keep in mind it did not break anywhere near the drilled portion of the bolt. It broke at the base of the threads and this was the bolt that came with the joint, so it's 9/16 grade 8 fine thread and greasable.

Just trying to determine whether to just fix it or to upgrade to something different, don't know what maybe a 3" joint?

My guess would be you simply exceeded the yeild strength of the bolt. If your running a single JJ on the end of your wishbone, then I would suggest upping to the 3" x 3/4"(bolt) JJ. I used this on my front 3 link...In the rear I have a 4 link, and used two 9/16th bolt JJ's.

They do make a 5/8ths too...A LOT cheaper than the 3/4...I think I paid $80 for the 3/4"...FWIW...

--D

A Rubicon joint would fix 2 issues for you...(dunno why this one broke where it did though)

I have never heard of one coming apart like the Johnny joints are famous for.

You can adjust preload on them so they will always be tight.

They accept grease from the housing so you can run a regular bolt.

Rubicon joints are totally rebuildable and only cost about $4 in parts to do so (unless you screw up the ball).


Rubicon part# RE3792 $50 (http://www.rubiconexpress.com/dynamic/mainpage.asp?partid=i7747401)

Johnny Joints $35.99-79.95 (http://128.121.255.231/purchase/inventoryResults.asp?uid=57188699&group=22&cat=167&sub=375&sub2=0&sub3=0&line=0&s=&prod=&vendor=0&sort=-1&key=&model=0)

Or you could just use a massive heim joint.

Thanks for the info I went ahead and ordered a 3" joint.

A heim joint in this spot would scare me unless its super industrial sized like 11/2" and chromo. And then it would have to be teflon so it wouldn't squeak.

I'm gonna have to say it's those puny axles you run that caused the failure... Haven't heard of any instances such as yours but then I don't know anyone running rockwells with them besides you.

I am using the Rubicon joints with rockwells and I have two in the rear with 9/16" bolts like RockRover.

I have bent a rear link and hit things so hard it felt like hitting a brick wall at about 15 mph and have not had any trouble at all out of them.

Only thing I had to do was tighten them up after the first couple of rides.

where are you guys getting your 3x3/4 johnny joints? Whats the biggest the RE comes in?

Currie