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Ray, I know that they have had this style for a while as one of the parts cars I stripped had a set installed. Don't know the cause but one had some noticeable bending in the flange area, could be a design problem, loose bolts, or road damage. The packaging looked kind of old and worn, but Autozone just dumped them loose into a bubblewrap mailer and let them beat against each other. Very poor IMHO. I did check Rare Parts' website and they do show them as being available, but at a higher price.

Will try to get a picture of the inside, if I can find the old used bent one I will try to get a picture of that one as well. I think that you could drill the center to lube it if that is what you are thinking. It does have the drain hole, but has some kind of grommet lining it so you might not be able to drill and tap it for a zerk fitting. You could probably use the drive in style of zerk instead though.

The problem I see with that welded nut and thin flange...is that if you are not careful, overtightening the bolt could bend that flange.
I would almost grind off the nuts, and cut or grind off the flange from an old pair of stock ball joints with its tapped threads intact.....and slip it over the new ball joint from the bottom as stiffening flange..an get longer grade 10.5 bolts. I bet that would fix it.
The difference is that the new bal joints appear to be a steel stamping. The originals were cast steel. Ray

Cast steel? I didn't know steel could be cast like iron!

I found the two old stamped joints off of the 412 I stripped. Not very pretty. As I said I don't know why they bent, loose bolts, poor design, abuse, just don't know.



They both are bent a little, but the one on top is obviously in worse shape than the one on the bottom.

Yes.....steel can be cast when molten. A good amount of suspension components like some steering knuckles are cast steel. Ray

Learn something new every day. I thought normal steel alloys in general didn't have enough silica to work as a casting alloy, but hey!

From what I understand...there is a bit of a process to it. Its like they are cast....then slammed in a forging type mold or tool...then heat treated.

First I ever heard of "cast steel" was during some reading about the artillary "shells scandal" of 1914-15. Gist was that all shell bodies were machined from high grade steel....but with the advent of modern artillary and the start of WWI....they were firing faster than they could make them.

They tried cast iron, but in order to get strength to not burst or crack, they had to be too thick to have any useful explosive filling. So then then started casting steel. It was somewhere in between and acceptable.

Here is a cool link to a foundry society site . It is a case study page about steel castings. The one about the cast crawler tracks for teh giant NASA crawler is neat.
They are cast from 8640 Chromolly!
Not everything in teh case study list is cast steel. Look at the material on teh right hand column. Be suer to click all of the links that tell method and alloy selection as you browse. Ray

http://www.sfsa.org/tutorials/index.html

John Deere built and sold cast steel plows prior to the American Civil War.

No kidding! Thanks to old Henry Bessemer I guess.

By the way....if you ever get to Birmingham Alabama...be sure to stop into the Sloss Furnacees. It is an old Bessemer style blast furnace comples that is largely untouched. It has been turned into a complete walkthrough museum.
You cna walk all around the blast furnace tower, through teh coking ovens, teh charge tunnels....everything. Has about 90% of its equipment still intact. It costs nothing...unless you want the guided tour.

When I drove myself across country to virginis when I moved in February...I spent threee hours at the Sloss furnaces. We had studied it in architecture school as a prime example of industrial archiology. Ray

http://news.webshots.com/album/156748544KFcZcH

Sounds like a neat place to visit, I will keep it in mind. A long way from home though.