Some decades ago I was in charge of a "remote location high altitude mobility test" on a prototype 8x8 truck on the ski slope at Flagstaff AZ, and the driver accidentally hooked one of the independent suspension axles on a tree stump and ripped the lower control arm clean off.

After some negotiations and maneuvers, the mfr sent us a new control arm and a new lower ball joint that "just screwed in it."

Well the hole in the control arm didn't have any threads in it, and the threads on the ball joint looked kinda funny, but they told us "it's a self tapping thread, just screw it in."

The "hex" on the ball joint was about 4 5/8 inches across the flats, but the railroad shop at the Navajo Depot came up with a wrench to fit it. We put the control arm in a vise with about 11' wide jaws, bolted to a 5 ft x 20 ft bench with solid 4" thick wooden top and figured that would hold it down.

With a cheater about 8 ft long, and four husky enlisted volunteers on the wrench, we got it about half way in before the bench moved a couple of feet. So we sat the sargeant on the other end of the bench, and after about 6 hours of grunts & groans we got the screw screwed to where it looked "good enough." 'Course by then none of was seein' much of anything too clearly.

When we got back to home base at Yuma I collared the "rep" and asked him what the torque spec for that installation was. He made a call to the factory and came back with "They don't have a spec. They have a machine that screws it in."

After some additional expressions of my "need to know" along with some backing by a couple of the herniated enlistees, he called again and came back with "They say the machine can run up to 3,600 Ft Lb, but they usually stop at about 2,400 FT LB - if it looks like it's seated pretty good.

I was so over-torqued I sent one of the boys with a "token" sufficient for a couple or three rounds for the crew at the EM club.

The mfr could'a screwed themselves screwed it in before they sent it to us to assemble with "field expedients." It sort's soured me on Xler engineering for several years.

John