http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-te...lling-off.html

I know this article is about an H2 & not an H3, but I am wondering if this problem is the same as mine? The diagram & pics that follow are kind of scary.

Let me just say, I am a huge fan of Hummer! My dad worked for GM for 25 years at the Shreveport plant & was actually part of building the H3 that I am driving. I am anything but a tree-hugger kind of person. But, I also know that auto-makers sometimes make defected products & I want to be a well-informed consumer.

 

I've seen it before .... except it was the passenger side. It happens when some nimwit repair person does not put it back together correctly and torque the bolts. So, what ya want to bet that the dealership worked on it at some time in the past?

Tell them you want the maintenance history printed out for your truck, every item of service through any GM dealership will be in that history. You are entitled to it's full work/service history.

 

My entire time at GM I never heard of this problem. (Yes, there were problems with H2s.)

For the pinch bolt to fail like that, it could be a defective part from a supplier, but there would have been more than one. Defective parts usually come in quantities.

Since it appears you have owned it from day one, was there any time that you had front end work down that would have involved removing any of these parts? (The upper control arm pinch bolt/nut, lower control arm ball join nut, drive axle nut all require new parts when serviced. They are torque to yield should never be re-used.)

If not, I would bet that someone during assembly did not torque these parts correctly and that caused them to fail. Never noticed in Shreveport, but in most plants the front end comes in fully assembled from a supplier plant, so possibly the supplier screwed up.

What amazes me is that if the pinch bolt broke or the nut came off and it worked its way out, then when the wheel came off either the drive axle had to shear at the wheel, the drive axle nut had to shear off or it was loose (something you would have felt while driving), or the knuckle pulled the axle out of the differential.

Also, the lower control arm ball joint does not appear to be broken (best I can tell from the photo), so where is the nut, it came off too?

Have to say this is truly a mystery and one that I would love to check out if I was still working at GM. For all these parts to fail and/or totally break at the same time is amazing.
For you, your biggest concern now is to make sure the other side of the vehicle is carefully checked by a licensed technician. If someone screwed around with one side, they might have screwed around with the other side. Meaning a bad repair job.

If you are not the original owner, and cannot locate the entire service history, it might be worth your while to have the dealer not only check the other side, but to replaced:
The upper control arm pinch bolt and nut.

Lower control arm ball joint nut.

Drive axle nut.

Tie rod to knuckle nut.

About thirty minutes in repair time, and the costs of a few bolts and nuts. They will have to do an alignment for the other side anyway.

Why have all this extra work done? Well, if there was a manufacturing problem, then it might pertain to both sides, not just the one side that failed. Don't let the dealer just loosen and re-torque any of these items. Like I said earlier, they are one-time use parts (nuts and bolts) and should never be re-torqued.

 

Glad to hear you are ok. Read and head all that F5stop writes.
Some of you may recall when I was swapping my steering knuckles to replace them with the ones I modified for the BP tie rods I broke a pinch bolt, removing it not tightening it! I replaced it with a grade 8 I bought locally as the dealer did not have any and there were none in stock thru his sources at the time. I did order two just for backup and to have the right part for warranty. However I have left the new bolt I bought locally in.
Funny, sort of, story on that. I carried the two OEM bolts in a bag to Moab and following F5 at one point I stopped to get something out of the bag. When some behind us topped the next climb someone handed me one of those bolts. I knew exactly where it went and suspected the other side had failed. Then we noticed it had no marks as if it had been mounted. I then thought of the spares I had and checked, one was missing.
I guess it is hard to tell what did fail before the forces after that took out more parts on yours Sarah. It seems to me the way this top pinch bolt is in there it would be very difficult for it to come out on it's own because it takes some work to remove it after removing the nut. But who knows at this point.

 

In soviet russia car falls off tire!!!

 

Hahahahahaha Now thats some funny chit!!

All in all tho, glad your okay sarah!