I was about 6 beers into my axle rebuild last night and was having trouble removing one of the bottom ball joints. After trying a 6ft breaker bar on my ball joint remover and a 20 ton shop press i decided to break out the ole torch. I heated the knuckle for about 2 mins then all of a sudden...BOOOOOOMMMM!!! I'm not talking a pop I mean like a freakin gun shot right in my face. It blew out my torch and knocked me off of my shop chair. I was kinda disoriented and my ears were ringing...i was like wtf just happened. After realizing I was okay I checked out the damage. Apparently the ball joint was sealed so well that the grease boiling or something built up pressure inside and shot the threaded ball out like a bullet. Luckily it was pointing towards the ground....if it had been facing me it proly would've killed me...it shot out like a bullet. It knocked a chunk outta the concrete under neath it. Luckily i wasn't hurt and there wasn't any damage to the axle. Good part was the rest of the bj came right out hahah.

Just a word of caution to those who like to use tha torch like me when things are being stubborn.

 

That's some scary shit! Glad your ok. Lesson learned. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Good info man thanks.

 

Wow. I was just planning on doing some ball joints soon too.

 

Wow that's was scary! Glad your okay! Now I know take the jeep to the shop, and not to try that at home!

 

hahah...i found this on youtube....you can skip to about 2:30....i wasn't as excited as these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93CtsxrRksc

 

yea that can happen , the oxygen in the acetylene together with the grease is what does it. you should NEVER use a torch around any grease oil or flammable fluid . you were lucky

 

WOW! That chunk out of the floor is quite impressive! Glad you're ok and that was all the damage!

 

yep I would have pooped my pants.... J/K

Being a welder I have seen all kinds of crazy stuff in the shop. That one was crazy glad you did not get hurt.

 

Yikes!!! I did my ball joints at a friends shop and we couldn't budge the passenger side botton so we used his plasma torch to heat it up. That did the trick but I'm thankful we didn't have the issue you had. Thinking about why this happened to you, it makes sense considering it is a sealed joint.