sticky balls

[jtparr]

as it implies....
front suspension, strut balljoint

CANNOT get the balljoint to seperate from the bottom of the strut.....the double wedge bolt was pretty solid but a few heft blows did the job, but the ball joint is just plain stuck

I also cannot undo the castellated nut at the bottom of the strut which is really dissapointing as I made my own tool (as per a previous thread) from a 38mm socket

question is whether using heat in these areas is safe or am I going to damage something or even boil the fluid in the shocks

If all else fails I guess I could try and drill these thing out......

the good news was I managed with a 30mm socket to get the lock nuts off the rear hubs so at least I can keep working on the rear suspension strip down this week-end


help please
jonathan

[davidppp]

Don't panic!

It will come off I promise..

heat is as always the answer..

I assume it is all off the car..

So soak it all in plus gas for a few days..

next set up some sort of constant pressure separating the strut and joint..

I use a big commercial vehicle ball-joint separator for that..

Very often that is enough..

If not, take it all to a man with oxy acetylene and a brain (!) and get him to heat the bottom of the strut while maintaining pressure..if that fails, remove the splitter and whack the ball joint further into the strut..anointing with plus gas etc throughout..

Unfortuantely this heating may well ruin the rubber on the ball joint, and I have yet to find any source for new ones to fit..

Then the big nut is much easier once you can clamp the socket in a vice to stop it slipping..use a bit of xcaffold tune about 2 inches long to support the top of the supension arm on the other jaw of the vice..

Good luck!

Kind regards
David

[jtparr]

david

at the moment all the strut and torsion assembly is still on the car, as I thought it might be better to keep as much of the assembly clamped in place whilst I hit things , mind you as soon as I take it off, then when its upside down I can soak the bits properly, so i think I'll do that

I'll call by halfords in the morning and see if they have a splitter that would do the job

I've already ripped the rubber cover so I'm into new balls as it is

thanks
jp

[davidppp]

Ha, never mind..by the time youve spent a couple days on it, youll decide that renewing it ALL is money well spent!

And you need have no worries about the heat..ifin the unlikely event you really really want to give it death, its not very difficult to remove the strut insert to avoid damage to that..

IIRC my splitter is an old Sykes..but I've seen similar cheep chinese in various tool shops like Machine Mart etc..

Nil desperandum..

Kind regards
David

[jtparr]

david


partial success, I bought one of the simple forked type splitters from halfords and with a bit of penetrating oil and a few hefy blows both the axles came free

for what its worth it seemed to be better to leave the assembly on the car to limit the number of bits to have to hold whilst weilding the hammer

I undid the top (3) bolts per axle to the inner wing to allow the strut to rotate and put a trolley jack under the wishbone so as not to potentially damage the torsion bars

one tip also was I cut off a good 15mm off the ends of the fork sepetators as the first 15mm is so slim its useless and stops the useful thicker part of the tool actualy being used. I also ground down the inner faces of the tool to widen its throat otherwise it was jamming on the pin from the ball joint

regards

jp