Front upper ball joint help.

Did you buy them cos the link's disappeared?

mgf and Tf are the same balljoint.

we buy them for around 8 each on ebay,i will find out tuesday where we buy them from

Yes, I bought them, but not all 10.

The Item number is 250848300674.

Here is a vid of the noise my hub is making on steering. It also does the same on suspension travel.

don't believe him, he's just making silly squeaky noises :whistle: damn attention seekers :nonod:

You know me so well.

I would soak that suspension in wd 40 for a few hours before you remove those ball joints.

I've heard WD40 is great for getting nuts off, Pete uses it all the time, but I prefer Plusgas.

cjj wrote: I've heard WD40 is great for getting nuts off, Pete uses it all the time, but I prefer Plusgas.

lies, damn lies, I may sue for deformation of character :yesnod:

What a horrid noise - sounds like no grease in one of the ball joints. You need to replace whichever has "gone".

I am sure you could pin it down to one of "upper arm to hub ball joint" or "lower wishbone to hub ball joint" by observing movement in either when push/pulling the brake disc at top and bottom or listening to each item with a stethascope, whilst an assistant moves the steering. A long metal rod or screwdriver to the ear with other end on the joint could be used as a make shift stethascope. You might find that the track rod end is the problem and not the upper or lower suspension arm ball joints.

The procedures of chocking the suspension, possibly disconnecting the steering column etc are beyond a brief description here. Details are in Rave or various howto's online. (I can describe if required).

Be aware that the upper joint is a beggar to get out - as it is screwed into the hub and requires a 46mm hex to undo it. The joint has only a nominal 3mm depth on it's hex flats to get a socket or spanner onto. In addition, the joint into the hub is very tight at 105nm and is often secured with loctite and just to make sure it's stays put, there is a thin washer bent over the hub and the joint itself. This washer/locktab needs bashing off the joint - there should be a new one in the new ball joint kit.. The joint's spigot is a taper fit into the upper arm and needs freeing with a ball joint separator, in order to drop the hub from the upper arm and expose the joint for attack. I rested the hub/lower wishbone on a padded axle stand so not to strain the brake hose. You could of course dismantle even further, to get the hub off the car and into a engineers vice - this might help you to get the joint out.

As I said, the joint is 46mm hex size, but the tapered spigot makes it hard to fit a socket over. You can buy a 3/4" drive 46mm socket however it needs to be flat at the business end. Often the sockets have 2mm tapers inside to help locate the tool onto the item to be undone - which is no help when the joint has only 3mm depth flats. The remaining 1mm of the joint inside the socket is not enought to get any leverage with - it WILL slip. Get the socket ground down to remove the 2mm of "easy fit" BUT ensure there is 59mm free length inside, being the length of the ball joint hex and it's tapered spiggot.
Rover devised a special tool to use on these ball joints that fitted over the spigot and covered the ball joint with a built in box spanner - I cannot find a supplier of these.

I hope others will comment on how to get these joints out - I would be interested to learn how they have done it.

HTH

Jeff



By the way, WD40 is pants for loosening rusted threads. PlusGas is the right "tool" for the job - use it many times over a period of 24 hours or more, so it soaks in. Sometimes it helps to try a slight tighten of the offending nut, before going for loosen. This can break a rust hold. For fluted bolts that go into captive nuts in frame work the 1/4 turn tight and 1/2 turn loose method lets any rust travel through the flutes in the threads as the nut comes free. It's a lot of twisting and turning though!
I have used a cycle of Heating and Banging and Cooling to break rusted in items. Use a blow torch and hammer, taking care not to scorch or clobber anything else that's adjacent to the rusted stuck item. Whilst not a commercially viable practice, I used all the above methods over several days to free the four siezed solid rear subframe bolts that others said would never come undone. I did have some blistered paint to sort out afterwards though. Garages would probably just drill the bolts out and retap or helicoil their way out of the problem.

:broon: Helluva reply there, Jeff! :thumbsup: You didn't offer to do it for him though :nonod: :bust: