Lower Ball Joint

[AaronJeff]

Im planning on changing the lower ball joint/swivel joint on my 197. Has anyone done this job and could give me a rough guide at what im looking at.

Ive never done work on this type of setup and would like to know wether its worth me getting the tools out or if its out of my league haha!

Also how have people managed to get the old joints out and new joints in? Heat and force?

Aaron

 

[sevenfourate]

I THOUGHT mine was knocking. In the end it was a drop link or anti rotation bar (I had my garage change both at the same time in the end).

BUT: I did look into fitting a new bottom ball-joint myself. As far as i could see its an entire hub off the car job.....which is no 5 minute affair in itself; then you'd need to set-up the complete hub in a hydraulic press and get the old one out and then squeeze the new one in. And a small amount of heat would help enormously of course.

Heat and force alone might well work - but its an aluminium hub, and the chances of damaging the hub / ball joint seating area are pretty high without some skill, knowledge or experience

Now out to work - but is their a guide here in the "How to" section ???

 

[turkie172]

Its a hard one to answer it all depends the range on tools you have and your ability/skill. Tool wise the drive shaft gave me the most problems it just would not push out of the wheel bearing hub a slide hammer was no good and I was very aware of pulling/ hammering on the driveshaft and cause some sort of gearbox damage so I got a cheap hydraulic wheel hub press/puller up to 10 Ton hand operated but on the other side the shaft pushed out fine with my thumbs but seems a common problem. You'll need trox sockets for the 4 wheel bearing bolts and good quality trox drivers for drop links and steering rod end I took the whole assembly out with shock and all still in did not drop the sub frame, car on trolley jacks ground level. Its worth doing a dry run just loosening the nuts the day before with WD40 etc. that will determine the outcome and the pinch bolt would not budge so I ground the head off to release the lower ball joint and then used vice grips in the gap to undo the rest of the bolt. Now the ball joint needed a full floor standing hydraulic press due to the size and position needed to press out the old one and heat etc. for the new one but could easily mess it up if not lined up and held correctly. So £160 (refurbished with renaultsport ball joint)- £185 for a new one you could sell the old one on for say £30 for someone else to use would be the easy way to replace the inner hub with the lower ball joint fitted. I put all new shocks, all drop/tie links and both the top mount bearing assemblies as the rubber can break and cause a knock when moving off which you will only see when the cars weight is on its wheels (see the pic). Mark the positions of the shock tops so when you put it back together you don't mess up the camber on the front wheels.

I have a dealer receipt for £600 for one side previous owner I know some specialists do it for far less off the top of my head rentune on ebay Lutterworth, Arons autos derby, the guys at Dartford and ALS Performance Carlisle really any specialist will do it but not all will replace the ball joint they my fit a new hub. Sorry for the typing let us know what you do