Lower ball joint assembly is welded to Spindle

For whatever reason, the previous owner welded the passenger side LBJ assembly to the spindle. There’s a missing 14mm bolt, which is probably the reason. Potentially they welded it out of necessity because they couldn’t get a replacement bolt… Who the f knows though. I’m going to grind the weld down and then with a cutting wheel, make a final cut to free the assembly. My question is, is there any reason not to go this route? I know buying new spindle would be the “correct” route, but since this isn’t a wear item and should be good until bent by a collision, or crazy off roading, I should be fine. The only other issue I can see is if the threading on the spindle is bad, causing them to weld the LBJ assembly in order to save money on replacing the spindle. I won’t know until get in there, but before I do, I wanted to check with folks who know a lot more than I do about these trucks.

any help on this would be appreciated.

‘99 3.4 4X4 off-road, lifted with all pro upper control arms and OME suspension and spindle gussets.

 

its a tight area but maybe grind with a carbide burr? its messy and annoying but i think itll do the job.

I also wonder if the spindle threads are messed too. in the mean time check the yards for spindles and may as well rebuild it with new bearings

 

That’s a good idea. It’s definitely going to be tight with the grinder. I’m thinking I’ll probably have to take the spindle off to get a nice clean cut and cleanup. If I do, I’ll rebuild it if it’s reusable, or replace it.

 

I'd take off the whole spindle before you start cutting and griding... Just to make it easier on yourself, and so you can control the grinder better..

2x on the second hand spindles with new bearings.

 

Seems to me like you'd be wasting your time cutting and grinding because it's going to be very difficult to get the old spindle cut away cleanly enough to get a new LBJ to fit flush and bolt up nicely (given these LBJs reputation I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than perfection in how that assembly goes back together).

If it were me I'd go straight to the pick and pull/junkyard spindle option. But maybe I'm wrong and you'll save a couple hundred bucks

 

Switching to a flap disc once a bulk of the weld material has been removed would be wise. I don't know how much penetration they got welding to cast parts (but that does raise a longevity and safety concern in general)... In order not to remove material from the spindle, I'd get as close as you dare, and then to separate the rest with some hammer strikes, or drive a wedge in from the opposite side.

 

@Truckstop13 shoot me a note if you just want a raw knuckle and which side you need. I have come across that a few times and just trash them. More than likely the missing bolt was stripped inside the knuckle or snapped off. I wouldn’t recommend and rethread with this part. An engine helicoil only results in a bad engine if it fails in the block or head, but this could lead to something serious if the LBJ let go for whatever reason.

 

@Truckstop13

Zipp sells many cleaned up spindles and more if ya need to replace what you've got, but also if you need a hand in cutting it off I'd be willing to lend a hand

I'm in the central valley

 

Thank you all for the advice! I appreciate it. I’m going to remove it, grind the weld down and give it some good whacks with a heavy hammer like @Andy01DblCabTacoma suggested and see how it looks after separating them. I contacted Mr. @zippsub9 about a replacement one, in the likely event that I’ll need to replace it. I’ll let you all know Wednesday how it went.

 

I highly recommend @zippsub9