Well the past two weeks have been almost unbearable...
Not only have I been recovering from a loss of a 7-year relationship, I am now recovering from the (almost) loss of a front wheel...

This afternoon while casually coming to a stop sign to turn right, I feel a pop and the car pulled to the side as i braked. I touched the brake again and the same occured. I made my turn and then pulled into the next parking lot. I was expecting a broken brake hose, but no, it was worse.
The front bolt that holds the right upper suspension A-arm snapped off.
The rear bolt was still holding it on, but it was bent badly. The front side of the shaft was resting against the exhaust manifold 3" away. I managed to get the car parked with the wheel barely hanging on.

I called a few service stations and i get this:
Our techs are too busy. We cannot get a tow truck there until Monday. Our tow trucks do not run on Saturday. We won't be able to get the bolts until Monday. Wait - a 1972 Olds? I don't think you can get bolts for those any more...
SCREW THESE IDIOTS!!

I called my mom for a ride back to my house to get tools and a jack. Luckily I had not gone too far.
Lady luck was with me (no pun intended), as I had only ONE bolt that was the right size, out of 3 coffee cans full... I guess 7/16" is not too common.
I had to reuse the old nut because i did not have one; thankfully it was still laying there on the frame attached to the other half of the busted bolt. That saved me a trip to the hardware store.

To make it short, I was able to get the bolt replaced EASILY (imagine that) after jacking the car, prying and kicking the wheel into place, and popping in the new bolt.
I drove home slow and easy, as the rear bolt was bent and strained, and the "new" one was not grade 8.
So now that all that is over, i will get all new bolts for the front suspension and replace them all with the correct grade 8 like stock.
I am guessing these are very high-stress areas and the alignment shims do not help the situation either.
In fact, i think i have too many of these shims. Of course the bolt that broke, had only ONE shim under it, and i was able to recover it, also.

Luckily this did not happen Friday night when I was cruising down a deserted farm road doing 60 at 11pm.

Moral of the story - replace all four of of these bolts if they are original, or at least carry them in the trunk in case you need them.
If you redoing your front suspension, replace them - period.

Old cars - easily repairable. Yourself - depend on it. Service stations - no help. Relationships - no hope.

 

Bolts are still available from GM: part number 9421430

 

Looks like that pup has been giving for a while. Sorry about the loss. Seven years is a long time to build bonds, and ties.

 

That same thing happened to me back in 1985 when I was 16yrs old driving my first car (1972 cutlass supreme) I just dropped my girlfriend off and when I got home I got out of my car I noticed the wheel was at a very odd angle. After further inspection I found the bolt had snapped. I told my girlfriend at the time and she said "Yeah it looked kind of funny after you dropped me off"
Anyways, could have been much worse. It seems to obviously be a high stress area where regular inspection or maybe changing the bolts may be required.

 

Yikes Rob,

The first thing that came to my mind was that could have happened to you on the Blue Ridge Pky.

Glad everyone is Ok.

 

Out of curiosity, why not upgrade to grade 8 bolts? would something else get overloaded in doing so? all I have in my bolt bin is grade 8, or some stainless for the truck.

 

Well, it turned out these were grade 8 to begin with - I did not translate the markings right. RuntoRund set me straight on this...

I will see if the GM parts are available locally, since they have the ridges that secure them in the frame.
MY442, thanks for the part #!

 

Glad everything's okay too, that could of been way worse. Maybe it was loose or was overtorqued at one time by a gorilla mechanic, shims fell out?

When I was 17 I was driving my girlfriend's massive 215 V8 '62 Buhog Special when the lower right ball joint snapped off. The wheel folded under the car and I was able to slide it to a stop against the curb. I drove it home a couple of miles with the wheel sideways on the ground, made nice ruts in the pavement and the tire done blowed up good too.

 

makes sence, never thought of that

 

Sounds like suspension rework may be coming sooner than I had hoped/liked/thought...

 

Oh Boy,I see a new Rob thread on the horizon

 

All I want to do is replace four bolts, but I know how many "mightaswells" are involved here. I can almost see dropping the frame before it is all over, but I will have to control myself as I do not have as much space as some of y'all...

Yes, it could have been worse, as I was on a date Friday night and we made a 50 mile round trip down deserted farm roads late at night after dinner. It could also have happened during a panic stop that I did in Oklahoma last month...
The shim fell out after the bolt broke, but i was able to recover it and put it back with the "new" bolt.
The gorilla tightness is a good point. How many front end alignment "mechanics" tighten the bolts with a torque wrench? They do it gorilla-tight, or the "tighten it until it starts to strip, then back off a quarter turn". Those bolts are under a lot of stress and overtorquing them will make it worse. I think those should be bigger than just 7/16".

The nice thing is that these four bolts are fairly easy to replace. Hopefully I can replace them without screwing up the alignment too bad. If i have to realign it, might as well rebuild the front end before then...

I do not want a busted ball joint, so those need to get changed soon along with the whole kit and kaboodle...

 

come on over to the dark side

I've never seen one break on the car like that. I would bet it was way over torqued the last time it was aligned.

 

Are you sure thats the part number for the top bolts I went to the gm site and they don't have a picture. The description simply says "bolt". Do you know the part number for the lower a-arm bolt and the rear control arm bolts as well? I'm trying to avoid paying 35 bucks for some bolts from opgi or year one, they want 35 plus shipping and insurance thats crazy.

Also I STRONGLY recommend everyone change their control arm bolts because I'm in the middle of a full suspension overhaul and while trying to remove my lower arm I snapped the bolt in 2 with a hand wrench. You can only imagine how weak that bolt must have been and to think it was holding my car up makes me kinda uneasy.

 

Rob,

Sorry to hear that you had this issue. I have never seen them fail like that. Thank goodness that you did not get hurt or wreck your car. You gave me something to think about and I will buy new bolts for my car as a safety measure.

 

Thanks for the invitation - I WILL come over, as you have a nice big shop to work in. Now that your car is reassembled, you do not know what to do with that extra empty shop space!

Replacing these as PM is a VERY WISE move. I had never imagined that ever happening. At least it happened at a "good" time though.

Interestingly enough and forgotten, when i was getting the crippled car backed into a parking space, the brake pedal went to the floor when in reverse. I think that may be another issue on the horizon.

 

Some research revealed this:

9421430 is for the lower front control arm bolt, four needed per car, but these could be replaced with regular grade 8 hardware store bolts.

381909 is the upper front control arm shaft bolt (like mine that broke), four needed per car. 7/16"-14 x 2.25". These are used on Camaros, Buicks, Chevelles, Corvetts, and more. Replacements should be plentiful then.
Regular hardware store bolts are NOT recommended, as they would stretch more in the thread area rather along the entire bolt length.
Also, the splines lock them in place to help for alignments.

9442937 is the nut for the the 381909 bolt, four needed per car. This is supposed to be a steel crimp-type lock nut, but some people online claimed to have ordered them and they turned out to be copper!

 

I keep buying more and more equipment. I barley have room for 1 car and my junk. Need bigger garage......

 

Hey Rob,

Sorry to hear about the bolt snapping. Scary. Thanks for posting all of this information. If you decide to do a suspension rebuild, definitely post up some before, during, and after pics...

I'm new to this stuff, so the specifics on suspension with pictures would be awesome. I had my wheels off over the winter and was 'inspecting' (and replacing the starter)...and my front suspension was a gooey, icky mess. It'd be nice to see something clean...

Russ
'72 Cutlass S

 

Rob,

Glad to hear that you and your car were not hurt.

I have been pondering a full front end rebuild on my 57 as all of the bushings show lots or wear. Your case just made up my mind to go ahead with the project while I have the 57 apart for the disc brake conversion anyway. This type of thing reminds us of the items we easly overlook on our old cars. Big wake up call

 

Glad you and the car were OK. Happened to me while driving down a residential street close to home (at 30 MPH). Quite a shock to suddenly make a hard right while you are slowing down for a red light (Thank God for the red light). As a tech/mechanic, I'M NOT; a friend and I had pulled disc brakes off a '71 in a field (bought the whole car for $50) and installed them on Big Red, our '68 Cutlass S convertible. My friend showed me (at his house) how to use a hammer and pickle fork to break the ball joints (EXTREMELY HARD WORK FOR AN OLDER GUY), then after I finished, used an air tool and popped them off in a minute! Anyway, I didn't put the cotter pin through the bolt somewhere down there, and a year and a half later.........you guessed it, the nut fell off with the resulting right turn. Had no tools, no phone, and folks driving by were just interested in giving me the "high" sign, as I was blocking two lanes of the three (managed to kick the right front tire and get it down to one lane). Learned my lesson. Pay a good technician to do the job RIGHT!

 

Many thanks...
Yes, I was lucky indeed. I was only going about 20-25 then. Had the exhaust manifold not been there, i bet the other bolt would have broke and the wheel come off completely. As soon as I made my turn, there was a convenient, new, clean, empty parking lot for a self storage place. It was almost difficult to get it backed into one spot but it happened. No problems later getting the bolt replaced and getting home, slowly and carefully.
I have located a new set of bolts and nuts at a local Camaro shop, so I hope to get them all replaced this week.
I feel more confident about the lower A-arm bolts, but I will replace those when I redo the whole suspension/steering system. I really do not want to do that until next year or after - it will be very costly...

I see a new master cylinder and brake booster rebuild in the near future also.

The A/C will have to wait a while...

Aron, in what area in Dallas are you at? That is one sharp looking wagon!

 

Rob: Thanks for the Kudos! Live out by White Rock Lake, Garland Rd and Buckner Blvd area. 214-327-6699 is the house phone. We also have the '68 Cutlass S convertible, and a '92 Custom Cruiser. Aron

 

I know exactly where that is... I live 40 minutes north, but used to volunteer for the lake group years ago. I do not go there too often now, but I need to do a bike ride some day; it has been a while. I will give you a holller some time! I need to check out that Olds collection too!

 

So I got a new set of four bolts and nuts at Firewheel Classics. They looked just as they should and were the exact style and grade (based on the head markings anyway).
Replacement on the left side was pretty straightforward, however you have to have the car jacked and you need to pry the upper A-arm a little to easily get the old bolts out and the new ones in. The nuts were not very tight at all, so check them periodically!! I used a non-locking nut to run on each new bolt (with some spacers) just to pull the splines into the holes as they should. I had to keep the A-arm pried into the right position to make it all pull together easier. I then took off the regular nut and spacers and put on the locknuts. Some big nasty shims were replaced with new available 7/16" shims. Torque was 50 ft lbs on these bolts for 1972 A body.

The right side was a mess, as the rear frame mount was bent and tweaked (lower right of picture) due to breakage of the front bolt and the front of the A-frame bending in towars the engine.
This had caused the shims to start "oozing" out (lower left of picture). The alighnment tech had wrapped the shims with tape (stupid move) and that made them even more slippery (upper right if pic.)

After failed attempts at trying to unbend the frame, I just put it all back together like I did the left side, except I used flat washers instead of shims at the back. This worked well, as the frame got recrushed down under the bolt torque - woo hoo!

BTW, is it common to have lots of shims at the backs of the upper A-arms and only like one at the front?? (Upper left of pic.) Both sides are like that and I heard this is how caster is set...

Hopefully this will safely postpone the suspension and steering rebuild. After that is all done, I will furnish the next alignment tech a torquewrench to use...

 

Grade 8 bolts have 6 hash marks on the head; grade 5 have 3 marks. The nuts were probably copper _plated_ not solid copper. You can use regular grade 8 nuts but should check their tightness periodically. Because of production tolerances, there could be "any" number of shims in any of the 4 positions. the factory bolts were grade 8 with splines just under the head to retain them in the frame, as noted above.

 

Thanks for setting me straight on reading the grade markings... I will correct my posts above. The nuts I got were highly magnetic, so I know they were steel.

 

Good to hear all is copasetic.
Always make sure you have chewing gum, duct tape and a roll of bailing wire for emergency roadside repairs.
The rebuilding part is no big deal and not really that much money if you do it yourself, weekend job. Now if you want to paint and detail it, about 2 months.
The best way to get to all that stuff is to pull the front clip, rear end has to be detailed before the new bushings too. Then the frame and floor pan look crummy along with the exhaust pipes, brake and fuel lines.
May as well just do a frame-off and make it easy on yourself.

 

X2

I don't believe you've spent enough on her lately.

 

I think she is thinking the same; just like a woman...

The suspension & steering project will run close to 1500 so far, but i do not mind spending on her because I will get to enjoy it, too! (Kinda like when I bought clothes for my ex-GF...)

 

Just think spending money on your car keeps you out of bars and houses of ill repute which in turn saves you money. Cars are always cheaper the the female relationships

 

x2 x federal bailout amount.

Females and cars are both the greatest thing since sliced bread when they run good and nothing falls off.

 

...and when you can locate a good one and when they don't run off on their own... Wait - I just narrowed it down 50%...

 

Getting back to the serrated bolts; because of those splines you should mention to somebody that they should not turn the head of the bolt, only the nut!!

 

Exactly!

I wish I knew about splines when i was frantically fixing her in that parking lot... Heck, then the bolt did not want to come out easily, I was afraid it was a fixed stud! I was not familiar with the setup then...
I had wrenched it out with the bolt head side as I had no real other choice as the bolt was broke... Luckily I stripped the splines mostly from the bolt, and the new bolt stayed in okay. These things I learn the hard way...

 

I usually replace the upper arm bushings as you can do it without removing anything and this seems to be a stress spot on a-body frontends ...

 

This happend to me this past Tueday 6/2/09. I was driving, heard a pop. I felt like I had a flat tire. I was really close to home. I went nice and slow. The front left tire looked as if was bent. At first I thought it was a ball joint. I popped the hood and noticed all the alignment shims were missing. Then I saw that the arm was agaist the steering column. One of the bolts had lost a nut. Then as I tore into I realized they wern't even the right bolts. The right side is correct.

 

post script: When my father ( a mechanic) came to help me fix it, He said it was a "special bolt" that had serated edges that should be in there to keep it the bolt from rotating when you tighen it the nut.

 

Dad is correct, however the serrations are mainly for convenience so you don't need to hold the head of the bolt when changing the shims. You can use a regular Grade 8 bolt. Unfortunately, the guy at the alignment shop won't know this and will likely muck up the bolt when trying to loosen the nut as a result.

 

Had a silmilar event 8-27-2011 castle nut on lower ball joint sheared off, luckily I was barely moving, getting ready to merge into traffic. No sheet metal damage.