Problem while replacing my upper ball joint

Hi all, I have a 2004 Tacoma 2WD PreRunner. Two weeks ago the lower ball joint broke as well as the upper and I went skidding to the side of the road. Luckily I was not on the freeway when it happened.
Anyways, I'm replacing them and when I tighten up the top ball joint stud, it bottoms out the threads of the stud. The nut is also past the cotor pin hole.
Originally when I changed the upper ball joint out last week, I used aftermarket part from autozone. When the stud bottomed out on that one, I decided to get the dealer part.
Now that the dealer part is doing the same thing, I am wondering WTH is going on? Anyone had problems like this when switching out the upper ball joint?
I apreciate any thoughts on what could be causing it to not fit right.
Rick

 

Interestingly enough, I have ran into the same situation with all of my upper ball joints, regardless of supplier. I am not sure why this is, but what I have done is installed a few heavy duty washers under the nut so that when it is tightened down, the castle nut will properly line up with the hole in the ball joint stud.

 

Thanks for the reply.
So did you ever have any problems with them after that? I always hate modifying things from the original way they were made to be.

 

Nope. So far none. I didn't expect there to be any either. There is no additional stresses on any parts doing it that way.

 

Update on this problem. I ended up replacing the upper control arm to fix this problem. I am pretty sure that the hole in the old control arm was enlarged which was causing the ball joint to go to far into the hole.
All is installed correctly now, and working great.

 

Yeah I changed out both ball joints on the driver and passenger side.

It kind of surprised me that the hole would oblong like that being that it is a solid piece of steel, but I guess if the force is great enough.