Alright so as some of you may know I took delivery of jeffroes beautiful 730 back in december. Of course its nasty in the midwest, and besides a spin up and down a field I have just used my old ds. All of us cant stop thinking about the dunes, mostly because its basically prime season out there and were stuck in crappy snowy wetness!
My week has already been crappy as classes started back up (never fun) and I got a pretty nasty cold now too. My buddies decided they were going to hit up the indoor mx track tonight, so I thought what the heck, try out those sweet elkas, and get some runtime on the new beast. Despite the fact I feel horrible we get everything unloaded and are ready to ride (after paying the ridiculous 50 dollar membership fee + 30 dollar practice fee). Its our turn to head out so I let everyone else go first so I can just mozy around the track getting a feel for it. I come out of the first corner and hit the first table top... all seems well...and then I land and hear a big POP and the front end just sank to the ground. The lower arm popped the ball joint (completely out of the arm) and made me endo (luckily didnt go over). So far I cant tell the damage, but the upper arm looks tweaked, and im wondering if the lower arm isnt as well seeing as how that was the one that basically pole vaulted the quad and myself up in the air. I am mostly concerned with that elka shock. It looks alright, but seeing as how it was connected to the lower arm that dug in pretty bad, im REALLY hoping the shaft isnt bent.

So that really sucks! I paid 80 bucks and spent 4 hours (wasnt about to be a little whiner and make everyone packup, that would be pretty lame lol) and just went out on the track and took pics/vids of everybody else the rest of the night. I did get some footage of my buddies dads 05 ds X clearing the triple [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] he usually rides a yfz but tweaked his subframe badly among other problems.

I cant say I have any experience with ball joints...but what should I do now? If the arms are bent its obvious ill be getting new ones, but if magically they are ok, can a new joint just be pressed in or is the arm worn and thats why the joint came out? The nut and whole assembly is still on the spindle, the arm just completely dropped away from it.

Anyway... I guess I will be optimistic and just be glad it happened the first time around the track just cruising, and not while I was airing it out.

Im gonna go take some double shots of nyquil now.

 

See 'knuckle on suspension broke' jan 17. You're right, this failure could result in serious injuries.

Off topic, but my Dad who's from DeKalb, told me German prisoners in WWII worked in the canning factory there.

 

Roost , that sucks!
Good to hear you are not hurt, sounds like you were lucky, my guess is the longer you would have been on the track the more "air time" you would have been taking............[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Good luck getting the 730 back together!

 

Dam man that sucks, I hope yuh get out of it with minimal damage!

 

kawiyawee ill check that thread out. I had never heard about the prisoner thing, that is interesting!

Ya I am REALLY hoping the shock is ok, even if the arms are bent I can deal with that, just not the shock!

 

See Roost, that thing should've come out here to the middle of the Mojave where she belongs. Just had to outbid me didn't ya? We've got nice soft landings in the dunes![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] Bring her out to our pasture to heal, maybe she'll just want to stay.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Hope it doesn't take too long to get it back up and running.

 

lol ya I would have much rather landed in sand when it broke, but not a whole lot of that around these parts. Dont worry it will spend as much time as possible in the sand, where the bike and myself belong!

Does anybody know if when a ball joint pops out of the ARM if its just the joint that is worn and needs to be replaced, or if the arm itself has worn? (seems like the joint would wear before the arm would) I am just going to hope the lower arm is alright and I can get away with buying new ball joints *crosses fingers*

 

I think my kid checked on the price of a ball joint from BRP it wasn't much less than the A-arm that comes with a new joint.

 

Alright I will look into it. The only problem is the arms are powdercoated, I may end up getting two lower arms (with fresh joints) and having them PC'd to match.

 

If you order it BRP it does not come with a ball joint. That is seperate.
pm me your mailing address. You'll have a like new ball joint in a few days.