Gladiator Ball Joint Replacement On The Rocks (and Rory killed Trailm8er)

[HooliganActual]

Those wheel spacers had nothing to do with the failure

So many people love to act like the spacers going to cause issues,

Spacers are not used by serious people in serious situations

Guess king of the hammers, ultra 4, and ultimate adventure must not be serious people in serious situations. ?

Without further extending the spacer debate (my apologies for even making the "comment that launched a thousand posts"), my point, and not well made, is that I believe the spacers were a mitigating factor in that failure.

FWIW, before I retired I used to travel to industrial manufacturing plants performing Root Cause Analysis on machinery failures. At the time, I was a very well respected leader in the Maintenance & Reliability community having written many papers and presenting at many international conferences. My statement was made based on me having my "RCA Goggles" on:

1) If the U-joint arm had broken first, then the yoke would not have been blown out, so I believe the yoke failed first
2) I have driven Rose Garden Hill in a Gladiator and I know the spot where they were broke down. There is a big shelf at that spot and requires a bit of finesse to get the front wheels up onto
3) When Shawn asked them what happened, they both laughed "nervously" and said they'd rather not talk about it...which leads me to believe they did something not too bright, such as:

a) too much skinny pedal trying bump it up that ledge​

b) "if" (and that is an assumption) they did the "right" thing and tried to get up that ledge with one wheel first, that could put a lot of stress on that axle shaft/u-joint/wheel set and a spacer or extremely offset wheel on exacerbates that, but​

c) based on the way the truck was positioned when the cameras got there, it looked like the front end was pretty squared up to the ledge, so:​

In the RCA world there is a premise known as Occam's Razor which essentially states that with two (or more) competing theories and no other evidence, the simplest solution is usually best.

With that mindset, I would wager (and please realize I am only evaluating the footage that we have available with no other supporting evidence) that they were trying to send it straight on in order to pop up onto that ledge; probably multiple attempts. They got a little un-square to the ledge and hit with that wheel leading while giving it the beans and blew out that yoke.

Or I'm wrong...

@bleda2002 You are absolutely right; but generally those drivers do know what they are doing. These two jokers were definitely not Josh and Rusty Blyler, lol

Sponsored

 

[JTGuy]

Wheel spacers vs wheel offset? Factory wheel is +44 and I installed 0 offset to clear my tires.

 

[Lunentucker]

Watched this last night. On their trip out, I was thinking "y'all better quit with the water splashing. No inner liners on her."

Oh well. She'll get more cubes I bet ?

Yeah, after the first good dousing it almost felt intentional.

 

[Renegade]

I’ve popped my ball joints after breaking my u-joint. I got myself in a bad spot on an undercut rock, broke the joint, and didn’t quit when I should have. I also have spacers, but guarantee they did not play into the situation.

 

[Lunentucker]

Perhaps some sage advice from another seasoned professional.

 

[bd100]

Grinder w/o safety glasses. "Don't do what we go."

 

[Lunentucker]

Grinder w/o safety glasses. "Don't do what we go."

They're doing OSHA ride-alongs all next week.

Sponsored