June 1, 2008

Busting my Ball...joint...




Above you will notice a thoroughly failed ball joint on a 1993 Saab 900 Turbo. To be honest, I knew a while ago that I had a bad left front ball joint. I chose not to replace it in anticipation of retiring my Saab within the next week or so. However, almost as if the car knew I was being neglectful, it forced it's attention upon me rather suddenly while making a left hand turn during my lunch break. The right front of my car came crashing to the road rather violently, sending my wheel well up into the fender and taking the drive shaft with it. All much to the dismay of myself, other drivers, and the Millcreek police once they saw it sitting in the intersection of two high-traffic roads.

Not having my new car yet at that moment forced me to fix the problem immediately. Let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a joy. Fortunately the only problem that resulted from the drive shaft being literally torn from the transmission was a ripped rubber CV joint boot. Interestingly this part was the most difficult to locate and the drive shaft proved to be the biggest nuisance to re-install. 
I got the car back together and all was relatively right with the suspension again, but now my alternator has failed... and it's not getting fixed. I'm now officially (and somewhat unwillingly) a Volkswagen driver.


1 comment:

Ronan Glon said...

Damn, the official end of the Saab..