Week-end Job : help needed !

[Olivier 3.0]

hi guys,

I'm doing the full job about susp. bushings, shocks, "turbo" tie rods and ball joints...

what a pain to remove the rear bushing !! You warned me, but it's really time consuming ! Anyway, it's done and the spring plates are as new (but if I wish I'd have bought adjustable spring plates with the bushings on it )...
bushings are from Weltmeister and need to be adusted on their OD; but I'm surprised that their ID is larger than the OD of the spring plate.. Is it "normal"?

The real issue is that I cannot remove the castelated ring from the ball joint; I've read that even if you get the special tool, it's wiser to use a chisel and a hammer, but no way ! plenty of WD40, hard smashes on it, but no success, and the notches start to be hurt... Would it be simplier with the tool? Is there someone who can display a picture of this tool? What else can I do ? heat it ?

Thanks for your incoming answers...

PS: I've made a little Excel sheet about the way to find the resulting height when you change splines on your torsion bar (only maths !), I'll put a link to it this week-end ...

[widebody911]

Like this?

http://www.vintagebus.com/cgi-bin/spring.cgi

Originally posted by Olivier 3.0
PS: I've made a little Excel sheet about the way to find the resulting height when you change splines on your torsion bar (only maths !), I'll put a link to it this week-end ...

[Olivier 3.0]

yeah, kind of... but I'm not that expert ! it's more a way to calculate height gain when you put X splines sup. in the inner and X spline down in the outer....


Anyway, could anybody help me about my ball joints, please ???

[Craig Stevens]

Olivier, I used a pipe wrench with a 2' long pipe on the end of the wrench for leverage. Soak the nut first with P-oil. Good luck ! Craig

[Clark Griswald]

Olivier

Those can be some tight buggers!

You might try heating and cooling a couple times, and more penetrating oil. But I think the real answer is to get a bigger hammer!

Use a blunt chisel so as to not cut too much. Work your way around and hit all four of the notches in succession.

Eventually you should get them loosed. You will need to replace them.

Here is one I did:



It is trashed.

If all else fails you can drill away the side of the ring, then use a chisel to snap it off

[Olivier 3.0]

thank you Chuck; I'll try to heat it and to find a less cutting chisel... For the hammer, there is not enough room between the ground and the ring ... the replacement ring is already there
! how do you tighten the new one (same tech. I suppose, with less torque)?


craig, I think your answer concerns the rod end nut; thanks, but I'm not too much worried about it ...

[dbanazek]

Heat always helps, if you have the arm off and can give it enough heat it will come off. If you only have propane it may come off with the hammer and chisel. The tool looks like a socket with a reverse image of the notches in the ball joint nut. If you put it in your impact wrench it should get the nut off pretty easily. This is assuming you have air and an impact wrench and want to spend money on a tool you will probably never use again though.

[jabb]

Oliver
You can find a picture of the tool on this website under tools
it looks like a large socket notched to grab the nut....

Leverage is a problem when working on your back.... I had the tool and still could not remove the nut.... The quickest way I found
was to cut 3 vertical slices in the nut with a dremel cut off wheel then knock off with the hammer and chisel. Since you are replacing the ball joints no big deal if you hit the threads with the cut off wheel... just be careful no to hit the A arm when cutting the nut

[Olivier 3.0]

Thanks everybody ! I did it!

The key word is H.E.A.T. ! I heated the ring, and use a less agressive chisel, and alternate the notches, and it came (see picture below)...

The other hard part was to remove the A-arm, but then again some heat, and it came. Then heat again to remove the bushings (far easier than the rear ones)...

A big big big thanks to Chuck for his tip about the Weltmeister bushing and the hole saw... The bushings were far larger than expected (how can W. do that; they sell a lot of these bushings and everybody has to adapt them ?), and his tip is the best way to obtain the good fitting (pic. below)...

compared to all of this, extracting the last rod end (with a new tool) and put the T. tie rods was a child game ...

next job: reconnect the Spring plate to banana arm, change the absorbers and put the A-arms back (after beadblasting), and go for alignement...

Its now around midnight here, and I go to bed ...

thanks again , folks...

[Paul Franssen]

My respects, Mr. Olivier!
You can do the same on my Carrera when you come over to stay at our place end of May!

[Oldporsche]

I've been following the discussions about the bushing replacements. Does anyone know what these bushings are made of?

I have the access to a lathe and am lucky enough to have a good plastics supplier. The problem is, I don't know the actual material to make the bushings from. In the past I have used delrin for bushings as well as nylotron. However, I've never made suspension bushings for an automobile. Nylotron is a fiberglass reinforced nylon material locally used by truck spring suspension fabricators.

After seeing the amount of work it takes to shape the "semi-finished" bushings that are sold, I have come to realize that I could do about as well making my own.

Thanks for the help. Btw, I would be open for any suggestions in making these bushings. I know a lot of the bbs members have a wealth of knowledge about this process.

Thanks again for the help.

Good luck,
David Duffield

[Olivier 3.0]

David, I do not know what they 're made of, someone could answer "poly-something", but I 'd say "hard plastic" ...

I think the problem is that they're molded or somthing like that, so the size is not very precise... there are still some air "bubbles" in the material, and I really had to remove a lot of plastic to fit in the inner space. And they're not cheap ! But no Neatrix here, so I must do with it....


Paul, No problemo for your car, I'm skilled now... Even if the ball joint still bother me; the ring is off, but I can't remove the BJ axis from the strut (yes, I have removed the bolt ) . it seems to be "welded" by rust, and heat is helpless this time... Any body has encounted the issue ?

[Clark Griswald]

Olivier

Glad to hear the progress you have made.

If I understand correctly you have removed the wedge bolt that secures the ball joint stud to the strut, but can't get the ball joint out of the strut.

You need a ball joint seperater tool. These are a fork-like device that you drive between strut and ball joint. It is wedge shaped and will push the ball joint out easily.

[Olivier 3.0]

Chuck, your understanding is correct, and I do have this f...ng fork (I used it for the rod ends), but however hard I tried, I can't separate the ball joint from the strut ...

It was already very difficult for the rod end (see pic below)...


Other question: when you install the little t-bar housing where the height screw is, how do you set it (T_bar rested) ? I assume the best way is to put it paralel to the ground, but not sure ...