Seriously?????

Have my 68 Dodge Coronet up for sale on a highway at te end of my road. It looked like it was going to rain (finally) so I went and got it. Pulled in my driveway and the front driver corner made a loud pop and dropped an inch or 2. I drove about 20 feet before I decided I should stop and looked at the tire and it was angled out pretty good. I jacked it up and decided I must have broken a bearing based on the noise. I the took the tire off and immediately noticed that the ball joint housing that screws into the upper control arm had stripped the threads and pulled out. Said well some buck put the tire back on and pulled it slowly in the barn. Now i need to find a control arm. Just had to vent. To make it tractor related I had to move one to get it in the barn. Also does anyone know of a mopar junk yard in Southern IN?

Tyler,

In 1970 I had a 1968 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. My wife drives like a maniac. She had just driven about 10 miles on a 4-lane divided highway with a 70 MPH speed limit. That meant that she was driving at least 80 MPH. She got off the highway and drove about 1.5 miles to our house. She turned into the driveway and as she drove into the driveway, the upper ball joint broke, allowing the wheel to fall completely to the right.

We prayed a bunch that night and praised God for His grace in spite of my wife's maniacal driving.

Tom in TN

Yea that's pretty lucky! Mine's been poppin for a while when I went around corners but I thought it was the suspension hittin somethin but apparently not. It's really lucky that I wasn't driving it goin down the road and it did that.

had one pop lose on a lift while i was welding up a muffler. never knew i could run so fast. truck stayed on the lift but barely. I have replaced the uppers on these with tubular A-arms on stock cars, if you can't find an upper, you might think bout it. kinda spendy though.

Came out of town late one night. 4 mile stretch of smooth straight highway. Decided to let the old Grand Prix unwind. Pegged her at 120 and the needle just bobbed. Stopped at the corner, turned half mile down to our house.
That morning wife pulls out on road with Grand Prix gets up to 25-30 MPH the lower ball joint on the left side breaks the tire goes up inside the fender well the lower A arm leaves a scrap in the black top where it slid on the road.
That was a close one. Mark

Your story reminded me of a similar thing I experienced. Way back in the earlier 1970's I had a 1970 3/4 ton Ford pickup and a 11' slide on camper. First longer trip, headed for Hershey, PA. Stopped at Columbus, Ohio for gas. Heard a rattle in the hub cap, pulled it off and found a broken off wheel stud. Didn't think too much about it, there were still 7 of the 8 holding the wheel on. We drove on the Pennsy Turnpike 70 mph amid a lot of traffic. In the middle of the afternoon our 3 or 4 year old at the time daughter opened the sliding window in the rear of the cab and wanted to stop. We told her and her year younger brother to lay down and sleep. But she was ADAMANT that we stop! We pulled off at Seven Springs Resort. I thought "while I'm stopped better check the lugs on that wheel". To my utter HORROR I found THREE MORE lugs broke off! We were very close to losing a wheel with that top heavy camper on the back! It was only the insistance of our little girl that kept us from a major wreck! We had to wait a day (it was the weekend) for a service truck to come, pull the axle and replace the lugs. Like you, I've prayed a bunch thanking God for averting a near disaster- and traded for a 1 ton '74 pickup.

I believe Moog makes a Problem Solver ball joint(over size) that will fix your control arm. BTW there are no threads in the arm(if you buy a new one) the ball joint makes its own when you put it in. You will have to find someone who will go to the book, the computer will not list them.

Check with your local MoPar dealer. Some dealers still have a few NOS parts lying around, or they may be able to point you in the right direction. If not, pick up a copy of Hemmings Motor News, they have bookoos of ads from parts yards. Or if there is any parts yard in your area, they may be able to find what you need on their parts locator.
I had a 1969 Coronet 2dr hdtp some years ago, one of the best cars I ever owned.

try partons in salem .////. in harrison co" twin cedars parts" , cant recall the old guys name , ask Jim at Capital Motor parts in corydon

Quite a few years ago I was driving my Ford pickup through the next town. I passed a deputy sheriff sitting in front of the church. I crossed a bridge and went around a slight corner, just out of his sight, turned in to the driveway of the chainsaw dealer and my drag link fell off. It would have been pretty scary at a higher speed, and kind of embarrassing if it had happened in front of the deputy. There was a shiny new state inspection sticker on the windshield, from a local "lik em and stik em" inspection station.

Jones auto, Orleans IN. 812-865-4161

That Moog Problem Solver ball joint will do the trick...we used to put 4 good tack welds on these after we installed them as a CYB. (We did this with the press-in GM BJs too)