Ball joint broke

[monotonorobo]

Yeah I just pulled it out again and checked I ended up cross threading the nut plate and the bolt. I think I’m gonna go to the junkyard and pull all of them off from the GM there

[monotonorobo]

Does the 1990 town car have the same bolts and plate as the 89 GM?

[sly]

Yes. up to 94 used the same bolts and plate nuts.

[monotonorobo]

Ok, I’ll go to the JY as a last resort. I tried repairing the threads but it didn’t really work out. I’ve also noticed that the nut on the plate on the other side can spin freely, don’t know if that was intentional or not but the one that stripped does not spin freely. I’m gonna try again but could i just use something similar to this plate instead? I was gonna cut a decent sized piece of steel and drill a hole wide enough for the bolt to go through with a nut and washer on the bottom.

[sly]

It could also be that all the ones I've dealt with are crudded up and not clean while yours spin freely. This could be fine. As long as you can tighten them and they don't come loose. If the nut came off easy, the free spinning is probably correct. But yeah, you can build your own caged nut as well. I don't see any issue with that. Just make sure it's grade 8 or better.

[monotonorobo]

Yeah I was gonna grab grade 8. I’m gonna keep looking around for a bit before I do cut me a piece of steel. If I can find a nut with a large enough flared end to cover some of that space then i won’t worry about the plate

[sly]

The only thing the plate is for is to not require a wrench on the nut.