Removing broken hitch ball?

(...)

Oh no. Fool me once, shame on you....

Nah. These measurements are giving me the whim-whams.

I think I will set this aside and focus on other things.

--Winston

mating threaded parts from China or India

It is scary to contemplate other safety-critical fasteners that are also 'accidents waiting to happen'.

that far off if I was attempting to run a

Heh! Yup.

it's up to the end user to make the right

That's what I found.

--Winston

If you squint and hold your tongue properly, you can just make out "Made in China" on the label.

Oh Well!

--Winston

I get something halfway decent - PepBoys, NAPA, WalMart and others carry Reese, but as long as the markings list a maker to blame (it says more than just "China") and they'll stand behind the FMVSS markings it doesn't really matter.

I never worry about torque on my balls - it's clamped in place, there aren't any spinning forces applied that would try to unscrew the ball. Besides, you're supposed to grease your balls well to keep that from happening.

With a proper big box-end wrench you get it "tight", then double-nut it till the nut is longer than the stud. Add some flat-washers if the ball stud still sticks out.

Then when you scrape in driveways, it's the second nut that takes all the abuse. And an amazing thing happens, when you want to take it apart it comes apart! The ends of the threads aren't destroyed.

Be sure to replace the second nut every so often when the end of the stud gets close. OSH sells 3/4" and 1" Grade 8 Nuts in small quantities.

-->--

Try some good Grade 8 nuts (plural) and see if the sloppiness disappears.

The balls they make in their factory, but they probably buy the nuts and washers from a third party - and the supply chains in the Far East can be really treacherous.

"Oh, Yes! They meet the tolerances you need!" (Quick, forge the QA paperwork before you ship them!)

-->--

The first replacement was from O'Reilly Auto. It is marked 'CTP 2 TO1L' it failed miserably. 'CTP' is associated with Reese but I did not see this part on their website. It has a very characteristic hexagonal mounting flange, not the more traditional 'circular with two flats' style.

The second is HF Haul-Master 31220. It also has a loose - fitting nut and I'm gun-shy about installing it at the 160 ft. lb spec. Your hint about OSH means I might be able to install this with a tighter fitting nut.

Thanks for that tip!

That, I have not seen.

(...)

Ah-HAH! I am off to OSH to see if I can salvage the Brand New ball I bought a couple days ago. (It's never been installed. The nut shipped with it is Loosey Goosey and I have no confidence in it.)

Thanks again for the info and tips, Bruce.

--Winston

I shall. Thanks!

That's for sure.

HA! No, wait. That is probably correct. DoH!

--Winston

I dunno what protections are in place for businesses that sell large volumes of sub-standard inferior products, but it seems as though there are some sort of legal exceptions, because many investigators are trained and experienced in finding the faults which result in large lawsuit pay-outs.

It seems to me that if sellers were held responsible for injuries and damages from inferior products, they would've all been sued out of existence by now.

I wouldn't be surprised if investigative researchers are constantly searching for and archiving comments such as ones related to quality issues related to equipment failures.

The typical packaging disclaimer that goes something like.. "product manufacturer's responsibility is limited to only providing a replacement of the product" shouldn't be enough to isolate them from knowingly distributing crap products.

There are two types of equipment which I always inspect closely.. hardware which could result in injury and electrical products. On metalworking machines and most power equipment/tools, any fasteners which fail could potentially result in painful and/or blood-letting situations.

I always inspect electrical devices, and especially those in which the final assembly is dependent upon hand soldering of line-powered connections, I've repeatedly found flakey sub-standard workmanship.

In the race to the bottom of acceptable quality standards, soldering a 15A line connection consisting of a tinned stranded wire, quickly soldered to a circuit board pad or metal contact is a fairly common practice in China sourced products.

I've seen these types of connections separate just from moving the wire, numerous times in lighting equipment and power tool products.

of sub-standard inferior products, but it

investigators are trained and experienced in

I suspect that the cost of out-of-court solutions is far lower than the cost of quality assurance, in the very unlikely event that an extremely wealthy lawyer is injured by a product.

Injuries suffered by the riff-raff are probably ignored with impunity.

from inferior products, they would've all

Multimillionaire lawyers seldom are in contact with the sort of tools that are likely to injure them because of a design or manufacturing flaw.

for and archiving comments such as ones

manufacturer's responsibility is limited to only

from knowingly distributing crap products.

The words "shouldn't" and "cannot" are worlds apart when used in this sentence. :)

which could result in injury and electrical

fail could potentially result in painful

assembly is dependent upon hand soldering

line connection consisting of a tinned

fairly common practice in China sourced

numerous times in lighting equipment and power

"Stab" wire connections are troublesome as well. I've seen many failures.

--Winston

So, the cut off wheels did the job? Good to know. I've found Dremel cut off wheels to be handy for many tasks, like this.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

I looked it over and decided that I could slice through the middle of the nut flats with some Dremel discs. (It took 5 discs, one shattered).

After slicing through two opposing flats and attacking the gaps with a chisel, I managed to split the nut into two semicircles and free the hitch ball without damaging the bumper.

The autopsy shows the nut thread and the stud thread look surprisingly intact. The plating on the stud is down into the copper for the length of the nut on both walls of the thread and the crown of the thread is much shinier and flattened in relation to the crown of the non-stressed part of the stud.

The minor diameter of the nut is flattened for about

This is supposed to be a 3/4-16 thread.

So the major thread of the stud should be no less than 0.75" dia. It measures 0.744". The nut is no longer with us as such but it appears that the minor diameter of the nut widened and began slipping over successive crowns of the major diameter of the stud.

I measured the thread on the replacement ball and found the major diameter of the stud to be 0.743" instead of 0.75". The minor diameter of the nut should measure no more than 0.6823". The new nut measures 0.689" I.D.! So our fasteners appear to be sloppy to the tune of about 0.007" per side!

The tightening specification is 160 ft. lbs. I don't know how much force I was applying to the nut but I would be very much surprised to learn it was much over ~40 ft. lbs when the fasteners failed, given the short lever arm of the ratchet and the remaining muscle tone of a weak old man. :)

Given that the thread on the replacement ball appears to be even sloppier than the thread of the ball from O'Reilly Auto, I will assume that it will fail at somewhat lower torque than did the O'Reilly part.

I conclude that Ed is right.

These parts are junk.

Thanks for your patience and advice.

:)

--Winston

That's ballsy, all right!

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Made in China crap, packaged in Mexican Free Trade Zone and labelled as made in USA???

Generous dose of red threadlocker?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Sounds like I should 'plate up' the stud by a few thousandths first. I really don't see this thing handling anywhere near the 160 ft. lb. torque spec as is.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

--Winston

They both have their place and it depends on your skill at doing fine work.

I cut 1/4" HSS lathe bits with them, but I can fill my coffee cup to within

jsw

They actually work very well if you keep side loads off them . I also prefer the reinforced ones for most tasks , but there is a place in my toolbox for both types .

The fragile ones are MUCH thinner, and leave a much thinner kerf. But then Gunner probably thinks there's no use for small hammers, either.

wheels to be handy for many tasks, like

I like the EZ-Lock kind better. They swap faster and they are cheaper than the plain-arbor variety:

Nonsense. These cut through the sides of the 3/4-16 nut quite quickly and easily. They *do* require dexterity and skill to use properly. (I mentioned that one shattered before I could do anything with it.)

I found that by storing five wheels mounted on arbors, I could make a lot of progress quickly. Instead of laboriously swapping discs during the job, I swapped the arbor/wheel assembly instead. Very quick and efficient. I use 'less valuable' time for mounting a new set of discs on arbors.

I could not make much progress with the thick reinforced wheels in this very demanding application. The reinforced wheels just bounced on the top of the cut.

'Strange, because I've used the fiberglass wheels in cutting less-demanding workpieces like lathe bits and they work just fine doing that.

I concur! If I had nothing but the reinforced wheels, I would have been working on that project *much* longer. OTOH I was thankful to be working outside because the fog of abrasive released by the standard cut-off discs is obnoxious in a closed room.

--Winston

Well, *I* can't do that without spilling but I still find that the 'regular' wheels cut faster than the reinforced variety in very demanding applications. It does require steady hands though.

I had a truck bumper to brace against.

Often, one is not available. :)

--Winston

Sound like you need a Portable Truck Bumper.

I wonder if ACME can supply those?