dodgetoford

helloo, i recently got long travel for my 97 f150 2wd. the upper control arm has a heavy duty ball joint. it goes through the spindle and the castle nut tightness onto it like its supposed to. the problem is that the castle nut passes the cotter pin hole so the cotter pin wont go through the castle nut. so with the castle nut with no pin through it, it backs off the spindle and loosens itself. soooo my question is can i put a bunch of washers in the gap so the castle nut will end up tightening lower so i can put the pin through it?. or do they make a spacer for this? ill include a picture so everyone gets an idea of what im talking about. PLEASE HELPPP thank youu

p.s. (in the picture i used another nut to create a temporary spacer until i figure out what to do about the problem)

kb8rhu

Well first off you have the castle nut upside down.

dodgetoford

I did that on purpose. The pin wont go through the castle nut with it on the other way.

dodgetoford

any useful information???

Hobbes80

I think the solution you have come up with, with the 2nd nut and the upside-down castle-nut, is probably the best solution.. the other nut will be better structurally than a stack of washers IMO... Either that, or a larger hunk of rubber on the top to keep the threads from going down so far... Maybe a urethane spacer on the top? Stack of washers just feels like a bad move...

I dunno.. just spewing ideas at this point.

dodgetoford

hmmm my buddy told me to just put the castle nut on there by itself with some red lock-tite but idk what would be betterr