Question - I brought my grand cherokee in today for service. There was a what seemed to be popping going on around front driver side wheel. They had to tighten the castle ball joint nut. For what reasons would this nut come loose?

 

missing cotter pin?

 

The car does not have cotter pins.

 

It wasn't properly torqued to begin with. Castellated nuts are designed to flex and bind the threads when properly torqued. They are also used to maintain a certain torque when used with cotter pins. They have been used in industry since machinery was first invented.

 

I am pretty sure about the reason and that was cotter pin.

 

Okay, you are right. I just finished an oil change on my WJ and ALL my joints have cotter pins. cthom, you'd better check your joints and c-pin them all.

 

Forgive me, I know nothing about car parts. Are the 2009 jeep grand cherokees suppose to be fitted with cotter pins?

 

I would assume so. Check with your dealer's service dept.

I have to revise with I said about castellated nuts. Only special ones are designed to flex. These are called pressure jamb nuts.

 

I was assuming the reason they told me that I did not have cotter pins was because I had the special thread crimping nuts. In the scenario that I was missing all four of the cotter pins, should you be able to look in the wheel well at the ball joint shaft (above the wheel) and see a hole where the cotter pin should go? Or, is the cotter pin hole/cotter pin no visible by just looking in the wheel well?

 

You may have to probe with a nail or something. There should be 2 holes 90* apart. That, with the 3 slots in the nut, allow for a wide selection of adjustments. It's entirely possible it got thru the assembly line without them. Stupider things have happened.

My uncle bought a Buick. It took someone else to notice it had chrome on one side and not on the other!

 

I did check with the service department of a jeep dealership and they said that they don't put cotter pins on the ball joint shafts anymore. Not sure what year they stopped doing this exactly but on the 2009 they were never there.

 

Okay, so it was never torqued properly. Even so, if it was my vehicle and there are holes, I would c-pin them. JMHO.

 

There are no holes for cotter pins.

 

Than as Dave said tighten them properly, and be careful, if you have any kind of self locking nut, you can't reuse them.