Quote:
Originally Posted by Comfortably Numb
Just done this job on my CDT, but prompted by the obvious play in the bottom hub ball joint, so I was replacing the lower arm anyway, and while there was no audible knocking, the bush was cracking, and having read on here that it can be a pain with the arm in situ, decided to remove both together. Used a friend's 18mm angled ring spanner and a piece of old exhaust pipe from the Mitsubishi to loosen the rear bush bolt, and much penetrating fluid, heat and lump hammering on the ball joint splitter fork by said friend to get the ball joint out of the sub-frame. Struggled to get the bolts re-threaded with the new bush, due to the road-spring on full extension, so the bush is rotated. Finally managed it with a tyre lever under the lower arm and pressing down on the bracket to get the bolt and holes aligned, and the same kinked spanner pressing down on the bolt flange, turning half a flat at a time. Doubtless an easier job, once you have learned all the lessons from doing it once, but not my idea of a fun way to spend the weekend. All designed for ease of putting together before the subframe was fitted to the car in the factory. Not so easy on an old car without dropping the subframe, with all the additional disassembly that involves!
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So if you are replacing the arm and bush as a "unit", to avoid difficulty in refitting the bush housing bolts, simply defer fitting the outboard ball joint into the swivel hub until the M14 bolts securing the bush housing are refitted.
This allows the arm to be articulated until the bush housing is parallel with the subframe without the use of any force, and more importantly avoids the possibility of cross threading the bolts into the subframe.
Once the bolts are fitted, then the outer balljoint can be fitted to the swivel hub.
The ordeal Andrew describes is completely and utterly avoidable
Brian
