32 inch deck need some advice

[Elkskin's mower junkyard 1,117]

ok while i was searching for a deck for dads 502 yesterday i seen this deck at guys house. well i liked it its in decent shape. Now i know its incomplete but we have the parts to fix it on dads original deck except one thing. this deck has one of the issues that plagued dads original deck. now this ball and socket keeps popping out. i am thinking of using a trick i seen for tierod end on this but need some input. on one of my sears someone took a peice of steel cut it and put a circle in the peice. the put it on and welded the steel to the tierod end keeping it in the socket. it still moves fine. but i am thinking on using same trick on this. but need some input or to see how others fixed this issue. 

This is one reason why dad stopped mowing with his wheel horse back in the day. now that i got a decent deck shell to transfer his part i want to fix this issue. his original deck is needing alot of work holes patched shaft replaced pulley replaced and among everything the same ball and socket issue. so its reason i got this deck here on parts run,