Since everything is basically done I decided to look into my busted parts box to see what I could find to fix. Found a bottom J arm with a snapped off ball joint. This is the one off of my brothers machine when he crashed it and went a good 130' down the side of the mountain. I actually have two of these in that box but I don't remember where the other one came from. Here is that thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16961&hilit=another+crash+brother

No it's not fukd. This is repairable.
Anyways pic below and more to come.

Well I basically finished it tonight. Still have to cut the head off the bolt, make a castle nut and drill a hole for a cotter pin.
To make a castle nut you can get one of those electrical cable tray coupling nut. Basically these a long hexagon threaded nuts used to join ready rod together. Some of you call it "all thread". Cut a piece off and cut slots on one end for the cotter pin to pass.
I know what you guys are thinking: 1) the idiot used coarse thread -- yup it don't matter because no real load on this because it's the taper that holds it all together 2) how are you suppose to lube this mess ?? -- you can't. No place to put a grease nipple. You prelube it with grease during assembly and the babbitt had small pockets on it where I put a bit to much grease on the pieces pre-pour. This left very small voids for the grease. Also babbitt (lead) is soft and not going to grind up the ball joint 3) The fool removed the plastic sleeve at the top end so now it's metal on metal -- yup this is one of the trade offs. This is not the Honda factory here. You could possibly use your old sleeve if there is anything left but this one was very very thin. You could see your finger right through the side of this one. The ball joint will not fall through the top hole anyways. Everything must come out the bottom end.

When this thing was all together it was real nice. NO play and you had to put the bolt in it to swivel it around. I got full rotation with no binding. This was just an exercise to show that you can rebuild your old joints successfully. It's better than throwing the J arm away. I am confident in this repair and would not hesitate to use it.

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Just one of the many places you should be able to get Babbitt: https://www.amazon.com/Alloy-Number-Bab ... bitt+metal


Seems a bit expensive but I never had to buy any. We had that stuff by the ton where I used to work.
If you look at the pic with the tape measure you will see that ours came in 2 1/2" square bricks. I think its only 3/8" or 1/2" thick. I only had to use 1/4 of that brick for this job. Only melted half of the brick into that hot cup.

looks good.

Hello CO, I read through this and am quite impressed with your initiative to fix the unfixable. Thank you for posting!

So wow, the stock ball joint just has a plastic cup in it? I'm surprised they last as long as they do!

With your repair:

Since the babbitt melts at such a low point, is there any concern of it melting when welding the cap back on? Or is just doing one spot at a time with plenty of cooling no problem?

I am wondering if 3D printing a cup out of tough material would last. It might, but no welding for that solution. So would it be feasable to drill and tap maybe 4 or 6 small holes around the cap to hold it in with small bolts, thus making it removable?

Good morning.
Thought I would check the site today and voila ! -- something to read. Even Baz posted.
Anyways lets take your questions one at a time.
1) Babbitt melting when welding end cap back on:
Yes - that could be an issue but what I did is weld about 1/3 or 1/2 and then throw a wet rag on it for a bit. Then repeat until done. I didn't have an issue. I used a wire welder and NOT a stick. Much less heat.
2) 3D Printing:
I wish I wasn't such an old man now because I would love to be able to do that stuff. I would love to print guns, gun parts and grenades but I just don't have the knowledge. I think printing a plastic replacement cup would be an awesome idea. Then I would just submerge the J-arm in water just below the cap and then tack weld it back on a little at a time so as to not melt that plastic cup. I do NOT like the bolting idea. You will smash the heads off the bolts while riding over rocks and also it may not be strong enough for this application. I bet my rent money the bolted cap will bust off.
CO

I didn't think about the submerge in water idea -- that might work. Or in oil, if you didn't want to risk getting water in the joint. I don't think sparks from welding would be enough to ignite it, would they?

Keep in mind, FDM printing works by melting a filament and extruding it out of a nozzle. So the melting point of something like ABS or nylon is going to be in the 220-260C range. But if it does get to that point, due to the nature of the material which is meant to be heated, it should just re-solidify if the heat is very localized.

Resin printing, which uses a UV cured liquid resin and can make parts with better definition, does not get soft and melt like FDM printing will. But while it wont get soft and melt, if it gets too hot it will just start to break down and eventually burn.

So my thoughts on trying a 3d printed cup though is that there would probably be some experimentation required with materials and/or design. I'm not confident that a first (or 2nd, or 3rd) attempt would be 100% successful, which means ideally you'd want to be able to disassemble and reassemble it again and again w/o extraordinary effort.

The original cap is pressed in, correct? I wonder if it's very likely that a press-in replacement cap could be sourced? They might have them at a place like this https://www.mcmaster.com/ if you knew what to search for.

The original cap is welded.
You have to grind it off to get the cap off.

mcmaster -- I would love to buy stuff from them but the faggots won't ship to canada.

Just another thought here about those plastic cups that wear out on the ball joint assembly.
I'm in the process of making a mirror for one of my FL350's.
I made a mold out of vitaflex 60. I'm waiting for the two part plastic mix to show up in the mail.
So my thought is that you could make a new cup out of some two part plastic mix.
I get my stuff from sculpture supply here in canada.
https://sculpturesupply.com/
CO

Understood on the cap.

That's cool you're doing the molding thing. I'll be curious to see your results.

I'm also experimenting with molding to make suspension link dust boots, since the originals are NLA and I couldn't find a suitable replacement. In my case I recreated it in DesignSpark and then "subtracted" it from a box to make an injection mold. I use a medical syringe to inject the urethane rubber into the mold. I printed it on a resin 3D printer. I bought the rubber mix from SmoothOn, the same company that makes that Vytaflex you're using. I experimented with some flexible resins for the 3D printer, in hopes of just directly printing rubber parts, but they were not durable enough.

My first experiment was not successful enough to make a usable part, but successful enough that I think it's doable with some tweaks to the mold and my process. One aspect that may be an issue however is that the cured rubber had micro air bubbles in it. I may need to invest in a vacuum chamber. I'd been on the fence about one of those for other needs so I'll probably just pull the trigger on it and get it over with. BTW, I'm not an engineer or anything like that. I'm just a tinkerer that takes satisfaction in learning new abilities. Sometimes it's a hammer looking for a nail, if you know what I mean. But it keeps me busy and my mind occupied.

OddFella,
Mcmaster sells these: https://www.mcmaster.com/boots/protects-against~dust/ball-joint-rod-end-covers/
Which I believe should work as a replacement for the original dust boots, although I haven't tried them myself.
Not sure how they look once stretched on, but based on Mcmaster's picture of one it may require a tiny bit of cutting
You would also need the installation tool for them though.

Yes I did see those actually. Based on the measurements of the original, I couldn't find one that was a reasonable match, but I guess yes maybe with some trimming and cutting.

But that's ok, my experiment with injection molding is a end in itself as I can see myself using it for other things that I cannot buy. I'm also into old cars and sometimes there are parts that just cannot be found anywhere so making them is the only option. I saw where a guy made a reproduction taillight lens for a 66 Chrysler using smoothon materials and the final result was amazing. Very involved, but amazing

Well well well ---- it appears we have a skilled guy on this site named OddFella.

Vacuum chamber:
Make your own out of a refrigerator compressor just like I did. Don't buy one.
Watch this video of mine and start at the 2:50 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNAsmZRHXAU

You can find an old refrigerator in a crack head dump site (like I did) or go to your local recycler and see if they'll let you take one.
Note: Make a bigger chamber than you think you need. I made mine a bit small. If I had made it bigger then I could put my mixing cup in it and vacuum that BEFORE I do the pour. That way you don't have to vacuum your finished product. Pulling air causes your new pour to bubble mixture all over the side of your pattern --- not good.
CO

you're too kind. I tend towards jack-of-all-trades and master of none. I envy those who can stay focused on specific talents and become a master but that doesn't seem to be how my mind works.

I had plans to make my own vacuum chamber, even got some of the materials. For the chamber I had the inner liner of one of those old portable roasters and I have a big old window AC unit that has a compressor that'd probably work. But when I see that I can buy a premade one for $200USD or less and I have so many other ambitions, I have to make a decision where to devote my time. If you knew all the different things I did make, you'd understand Let's see... there's the homemade burnout oven with homemade multi-step controller, the homemade vibratory tumber, the homemade triple chrome plating station with homemade heaters and temperature control via PC and Arduino with homemade software, the homemade smelting furnace, the homemade... well you start to get the picture

Sounds like you are exactly like me.
I built my own vacuum former for plastic. I do roof top storage lids for the oddy and those side panels on the steering column. It's not big enough to do fenders but I don't run fenders.
Do my own rubber molding for Engine mounts and intake manifolds.
Liquid cool all of my engines by smashing off the fins and welding on cans. There is a couple of threads of mine on this site for doing that.
Built my own cylinder head, there is a thread for that too.
I'm a certified millwright with a welding ticket but I'm old now and retired.
Don't know what you do for a living but it's obviously some kind of mechanical. You are skilled.
We had at one time on this site a tremendous amount of talented trades guys but we all got old and some even passed away. The rest don't show up anymore for various reasons and that's to bad because the knowledge is lost unless they posted it here. I don't even know how long hoser will keep this site alive. He is currently having issues as well.
CO

Yes it sounds like it! I imagine if the two of us got together on a project we'd be pretty dangerous lol

I went to college (in the late 80's) for computer science but quit before graduating to go into the family business, a copier dealership, and have been at that ever since. I always was a tinkerer, even when I was a kid, and I always liked working on mechanical things. But my family had pretty humble beginnings so I always had to scrape and make do with whatever was around the farm. Now that I'm older and have some resources I can indulge myself. I can buy tools when I need them, I've got a place to work, and with the internet I can research and learn just about anything.

It's a shame this forum, and so many others that I used to frequent for cars, tractors, etc. seem to have been abandoned for FB. I still cannot understand why people would prefer using it vs. a forum like this.

I don't belong to ANY social media, but I do youtube because hoser would not let us post vids on this site, probably because of storage requirements.
As for facebook over a forum like this I don't understand it either.
The only thing I can figure out is that a forum like this is hobby specific and dedicated to only one thing. That's good because the information will be accurate. Facebook must be a disaster because the idiots can blab about all kinds of different stuff at the same time.
CO

I think one of the reasons is so many people just use their phone for internet and a forum like this is challenging to use on a little device whereas FB is designed for it. But that same simplicity is what makes FB so inadequate for really good discussions. FB is designed more for people with ADHD, or to give people ADHD...

Oh well, I'll keep posting questions on this forum and you can keep posting answers...hehe