Front spring eye bolt...

[jms]

...broken; of the greasable variety. Found it while airing up after 7 days of trails in AZ over the holidays; no idea when it actually broke (or where the other half went...), but didn't notice it that same day when I aired down, and I do look for things while airing down...

Replaced it on the spot with a regular bolt from my boonie box.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Personally i don't see any reason to run a greasable bolt. Grease them up when you put them together and forget about it unless you continually go through water crossings then it might be a good idea to either use marine grease or pull the bolts every so often and do a routine greasing on them. Drilling a bolt to make it greasable just weakens the bolt.

 

[tRustyK5]

I agree, and check where the bolt broke...not that it should be a surprise.

Rene

 

[4X4HIGH]

You can see that the bolt broke exactly where the cross drilling is, the weakest part of the bolt.

 

[Stephen]

With a nylock nut, there's a good chance it's a grade 5 bolt, and it's hard to see sizes in perspective but the crosshole looks big too. And it might be in the middle of the bolt. The size of the hole down the length isn't really an issue since the center material of a bolt is so "dead".

All stuff we've changed, several (quite a few) years ago. If you want to keep it slick, stay greasable, otherwise put in the good dedicated silicone lube but it does wear out over time.

 

[70jimmy]

It has been breaking for some time by the look of the break. (metal fatigue) only the rougher part on the bottom of the bolt was the final fracture.

Good Catch!! May have prevented an ugly mishap.

 

[70jimmy]

Sounds like a good idea to replace them all to me.