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