Wishbone - how to crack the ball-joint.
 

Happy New Year to all!

Having replaced the droplinks (twice in two years) and the anti roll-bar bushes but still getting clunks from the front suspension over rough roads, I decided to bite the bullet and replace the front wishbones. I read a number of threads on the forum and the sticking point in all of them seemed to be cracking the taper on the ball-joint into the sub-frame, so it was with some trepidation that I embarked on the job. Sure enough, having undone the nut to level with the end of the threads and hit it for several minutes with a club hammer, nothing was shifting, so I started to look for a different approach. I put a bottle jack under the hub swivel joint and raised the suspension in order to increase the space between the wishbone and the sub-frame. I then found a hammer head that would fit into the gaphttp://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k8...ps3ginzbpp.jpg and then lowered the jack so that the coil spring was bearing down on the outer end of the wishbone. A few whacks with the club hammer and the taper cracked.http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k8...psgpuyvziu.jpg

I decided to use the same technique on the other side in case the first one had been a fluke. Got the hammer head in position (as close to the ball-joint as possible for maximum mechanical advantage), lowered the jack, seven (I counted) whacks with the club hammer and the taper cracked!

The rest of the job was typically fiddly - getting the new wishbones in place was like one of those puzzles you get in Christmas crackers, and lining up the holes in bushes and getting the threads started took some time, but all in all, not too bad a job.

On inspection all four of the old ball-joints were a little loose, though not very, but the car is now much quieter over rough roads and the steering feels a little tighter too. Hopefully that's it for front suspension jobs - at least for now!

Hello Mike - glad to hear that this has resolved your issues. I have similar clonks / rattles and have a couple of questions.

1. How did you diagnose play in the joints and what mileage have they done?
2. Had you replaced the wishbone bushes before deciding to change the wishbones?
3. If you put new bushes how bad a condition were the old ones?

I'm putting off buying arms and hoping the lower bushes will cure my clonk . I've failed miserably to test the ball joints to my satisfaction, or I should say, imnot convinced I've tested them correctly to give me enough confidence to say that they are OK or that they are shot. They seem OK...

Hi Dave,
My car has only done about 50k (37k when I bought it two years ago) but I suspect it has had a hard life. I had to replace the top strut bearings early on and have also replaced two of the engine mounts and the anti-roll bar bushes. I have suspected the wishbone ball-joints as being the source of my suspension clonks for some time, but despite investigations with pry-bars, have been unable to conclusively pinpoint them as the culprits. Others have mentioned similar problems, so it was really a process of elimination. I had changed the wishbone bushes - diagnosed by looking for forward and backward play in the wheel - I put my foot near the top of the wheel and pushed toward the back of the car, which resulted in about half and inch of movement. When I took the old bushes out they virtually fell to pieces. You should be able to see if yours are shot and may be able to pull them from side to side from under the car.

I found that if I hit the bottom of the anti-roll bar upwards it produced a definite clonk, and as I mentioned, my first replacement set lasted less than a year - so it's worth checking them for play before embarking on wishbone replacement.

I have to drive along a short section of unmade road to get to my house; this is where the clonks from the suspension were most noticeable. I think the problem as far as diagnosis is concerned is that if you test for play without jacking the car up you've got the weight of the car to contend with; if you jack the car up you've got the force of the coil springs working against you. When I examined my old wishbone I found barely noticeable play in all four swivel joints, but the difference on the unmade road is proof that even a small amount of play will result in a lot of noise.

Because I had recently replaced my wishbone bushes, I decided against going for the kit offered by DMGRS (though I'm sure it's very good) and instead bought a pair from Autodoc made by Stark (SKCA-0050081 and SKCA-0050083) Stark are a German manufacturer and, as far as I can see, the only ones to offer a three year warranty. Time will tell whether they were worth the extra money! I would be interested to hear how you get on,
best wishes,
Mike

Thanks for that Mike. I thought I was being a bit dense re testing ball joints.

I've had a good crawl underneath and I can see there are splits in the rubber on the bushes. Thse were replaced by the previous owner 30k km ago but there was no details of which brand

I think my arm are still the originals and have now completed 220k km so I reckon they might be coming to the end of their useable life. Although I'm sure I've read on here some where that arms have later in excess of 150k miles. So I may be able to squeeze a few more kms out them yet!

I went for first line bushes which were on special and spotted by Marinabrian. Including delivery to me here in Spain worked out £22 each. Hopefully they'll be here next week along with front discs.

I like Matt and his products but unfortunately the postage kills it for me so I use Mr auto these days.

My one attempt with autodoc was unfortunate. They substituted Monroe dampeners for their own brand and I got all emotional about it. To be fair it was all sorted with a few phone calls. I was concerned because at the time their own brand ( i think that is Stark ) was just starting out and their quality was unkown and I couldn't find any reviews about them. But I did find out that brand name and trademark Stark is owned by the same company as autodoc. However given the amount of products autodoc shift I'm fairly certain we would have heard if the quality was terrible. But as you say time will tell.

I attempted to change one of mine last summer and eventually gave up because I couldn't split the taper joint. Tried heat and whacking it as best I could with a lump hammer - but it would not shift. In the end I put it all back together, with plans on tackling it again this Spring. Your opportune post has given me a little more hope in getting it done this time!

Thanks for posting.

I hope it's not just that mine were particularly easy; though they gave no impression of shifting with hammering alone, so perhaps this technique will shift yours too! I do hope so. Best of luck.

i thought i read somewhere the easiest way is to let the weight of the car
rest on the protruding ball joint stub that can be seen on the underside of the subframe.

Hi Mike,your method is the best IMO for you apply a static pressure plus an
extra hammering impact..

Congrats :xmas-smiley-032:

Mike

That didnt work for me, i have had to do this job so far 4 times so can't claim to be an expert but this method of Mike's looks to have potential, and will certainly try it as first option next time.

First time i managed it with about 2 hours of hammering, second time it was longer, third time no amount of hammering worked so i used a puller. It was quite nerve wracking as the strain on the puller looked like it would give way before the joint.
http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/p...psggslbpzn.jpg

Thanks for this Mike - another useful method for getting the wishbones off, and probably lower risk than the jack/weight of the car method. I have been successful on a few occasions now using a good bearing puller to crack the joint, as mentioned by David Lawrence. However, it is good to have a possible back-up in case this does not always work.

Cheers

Pete

I like the appliance of science to a problem like this and Mike's method applies just enough logic that it should work and as said before looks easier than my method. My greatest fear was the threads stripping in the puller.

Jules method seemed like a dead cert by dropping the car off a jack on to the ball joint stud but just didnt work for me. The neighbours thought i had gone mad. But after about 20 drops i gave up and used the puller. Then the joint just kind of sits there looking at you saying "what was all that about then?"

Wishbone-how to crack the ball joint.
 

I think Mike24's post on "how to crack a ball joint" merits going into the "How to" section, the more alternative ways the better.:icon_lol:
Martyn

I went out and had a quick measure up of the wishbone this morning; the distance between the sub-frame ball-joint and the hub ball-joint is about 14" (350mm). If the fulcrum is placed around 2" (50mm) from the sub-frame ball-joint it will give a mechanical advantage of 7:1. I don't know how much force is required to compress the coil spring, but I guess it must be several hundred pounds, multiply this by seven and the pulling force exerted by the spring must be considerable! The larger the diameter of the fulcrum between the sub-frame and the wishbone the more the spring has to be compressed and the greater the resultant force. My first thought was to use a large socket as a fulcrum, but there were some slightly ominous cracking noises as I lowered the jack under the hub ball-joint and I was concerned that the thinner part of the socket might be crushed, so I substituted the hammer head.

It would be even better if a purpose sized spacer could be used, optimized for easy insertion and maximum benefit. If you then drilled a hole in each end it could be turned in to a puller for any that dont pop with a few hammer blows

Just dug this post out as I remember a pic of a bearing puller David Lawrence used to seperate joint, unfortunatly PhotoBucket strikes again.

Ive done this twice before and both times dropping car did not budge it and I had to get it on a 4 post with drift chisel and huge hammer. I would like to avoid this and do it on the drive, has anyone got a link to a bearing puller that may work.

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This is almost the same as the one I use;
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TecTake-BEA...ller+kit&psc=1

If the taper joint is well seized into the subframe, then you will need to use quite a lot of force on the puller, and one of mine has got slightly bent undoing a stubborn wishbone, but this piece of kit has always shifted them in my hands.

Pete

Thank you, looks more solid than the 3 leg's one I was looking at and not a bad price. Its not been on more than 12 month, but they still seem to wedge solid on taper.



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You guys got any suggestions on a puller that will fit? I can't seem to get enough clearance to fit a puller :(

The one that does fit keeps spreading open the more i wind it so i can't get it to apply the force where it's needed.

Without being to jack the car up that high, using a hammer is pretty hopeless as i'd never be able to get enough welly to it.

I've just done this and it was an absolute nightmare. :mad:

Thread here:

https://the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/s...d.php?t=290819

The tool that worked was a US Pro 12 tonne ball joint separator - it's one big, heavy piece of kit.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....1AkhPgrYJL.jpg

You'll need to drop the anti roll bar and the steering rack ball joint (cue wheel tracking) because the space is very tight but it can be done. I created a "well" in grease around the top of the ball joint and filled it with Plusgas and left it for several days to help.

Good luck.

Andy.

A link to buying the seperator
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heavy-Hydra...joint+splitter
macafee2

Did this fix your clonks long-term Mike - i.e. is it still 'de-clonked'?

Did you change the wishbones and the bushes (all 4 parts shown here) or just the wishbones?

Hi all

Just about to do this job.

With this method, do you need to break the subframe balljoint before detaching the bush and the lower strut balljoint?

thanks

Jim

my last job whilst in this process is to crack the subframe joint. it needs to be free to pop up if you are using the impact or puller version. i found the trapped hammer method worked well for me but you need the lower joint still bolted and tight to get the spring pressure with a jack underneath. if you use the impact method where you drive it out from underneath the subframe only with brute force , what i found was if you remove the rubber from around the subframe joint it helps as i believe it dampens the impact because of the rubber and lessens the shock effect. (if your not re using it of course) i preffered the spring method personally but sometimes you need both !!!

Thanks for that - so to confirm "hammer head" method steps in order will be: release bush mount at rear. loosen subframe balljoint nut. Jack up under strut lower balljoint to create space. place hammer head as fulcrum in space created. Let jack down to break subframe balljoint. Undo lower pinch bolt and balljoint. Have I got that right?

i just cracked the lower joint first then nipped it back up when i did mine .
i havedone 5 now. i dont think it makes much difference apart from recoil on the pin and swivel hub being a damage possibility albeit slight. the subframe balljoint only needs upwards movement of a few thou so is not impeded for upwards movement anyway. another point to mention is that the rear bush whilst still bolted also absorbs the shock effect from hammer blows due to the rubber bushing insert .just remove the bolts anyway. it also depends how long the bush has been in and how rust welded the joint has become. i have never bought into the idea of raising and dropping the car down quickly on to a solid support to release method. for me it never worked because if you look at the angle of the subframe joint through the subframe its not vertical and by dropping it onto a support below does nothing . you may as well hit the pin sideways because it achieves absolutely nothing . dont expect the subframe joint to pop out immediately whilst under spring pressure everytime. on two of mine all that was needed was a couple of taps whilst it was under pressure from the spring and out they popped. key to it is remove bolts on rear bush first this will give more pressure to the spring. good luck.

dont try to get too near to the balljoint pin as it needs some movement downwards to get momentum . otherwise you will just stop it dropping . again i removed the rubber gaiter out of the way first as i was not re fitting the arm anyway.

Had every intention of trying this method but curiosity got the better of me and I tried it first with my hammer and was successful after 3 hits , So may be next time I will try it if I find a stubborn taper ;)

Thanks all. It's proving a challenge. No movement with the fulcrum technique and lump hammer. Have applied heat to pin end and even managed to get a chain round the subframe to use 2.5 ton trolley jack to apply 2.5 tons of pressure. Nothing! Fortunately not in a hurry. Will get bigger lump hammer.

Like Colvert I used a 7lb lump hammer ,
The higher the car from the ground the better the swing with the hammer ,
A Heavier hammer performs better as it is less likely to bounce and transfer's more energy to the item been hit . A few big hits more effective than a lot of small taps , If your replacing the arm a bit of bruising isn't a problem anyway
If you keep assaulting it the taper will eventually give , and then you be left thinking what took all the effort :eek:
Failing that others have had success with a puller , but up to now and I have done a few never had to resort to more than the hammer
The arm I am changing has slight outer ball joint play but been the original arm is 17 years old so has given good service

Yes i suspect this is the original and so now 20 years old. In that time my second son has been born, lived in 3 countries, gone to nursery, primary school, secondary school passed driving test and bought his own car. A lot of happy memories. Better tha being a ball joint if you had to choose.

Finally got it with four blows from the new Screwfix 4kg sledgehammer. I'd say 40 mins labour so far and 3 days on and off thinking about it. Thankfully did not resort in frustration to anything daft or destructive. As others have said, size of the lump hammer is key. Thank you

Pleased to here you have been successful :D, some times you don't have to be frightened about giving things a good rattle with a big hammer :eek:
As said in earlier post , I've not had to resort yet to any other method to remove one . ;)

And worth adding that having replaced strut top bearings a couple of years back, the lower pinch bolts came out like a dream. Next job is welding sills, after some practice with the MIG. Determined not to give in. Lucky to have no time pressure.

I'm curious are people using this lump hammer technique with the car on axle stands rather than a lift/over a pit? I was just thinking you must have to get the car to some height to get a decent swing.

In my case on axle stands. With 4kg sledgehammer.

I think I'll invest in a bigger hammer (than my biggest one at only 1kg) then when the time comes. Thanks :D

I would think that the majority of forum members actually use axle stands to change out the arms . I have access to both a lift and pit but usually just change them on axle stands . I have found the best way is to jack the complete front of the car up from the centre of the subframe and place axle stands under the sub frame just back from from the inner arm ball joint , This gives room to work under the car to remove the rear bush bolt and the front bush bolt can be removed from under the wheel arch . Providing the hammer head is large enough to let the shaft clear the anti roll bar, the inner ball joint in the subframe is quite a good angle to strike to remove from under the wheel arch !
;)


A 1kg hammer is something of a toffee hammer to carry out a task like that ! :laughing2:

im suprised you can still crack your ball joints ...... :D

It's true bigger is usually better which is why I have been cultivating so much mass since lockdowns first started. Strangely it all seems to grow around the stomach area in the form of a large soft beachball :D