Suspension: 164: Front lower balljoints - what gives?

[Pigeon]

Sorry guys. Pigeon's asking about 164s again...

My new acquisition passed its MoT today (thankyou Lord) with an advisory on play in the lower balljoints on both sides. No problem, thinks Pigeon, done those on the Amazon, not difficult. Onto the phone, order two balljoints from Amazon Cars. We discuss postage... "I reckon they'll be in boxes about 4 inches cube." "Yes, they are." Order placed.

Down to the garage, off with the front wheels to wire brush dirt off the relevant area and make a preparatory application of WD40 to forestall difficulties in dismantling...

On the Amazon the balljoints have one big nut on the end of the taper and four bolts holding the protruding legs to the lower wishbone...

On the 164 I can't see any kind of bolts holding them to the wishbone at all. More wire brush. No, still can't see any bolts...

I haven't, by some horrid chance, got some 164 variant where the balljoints are integral with the wishbone and I have to get the balljoint and wishbone all as one piece? Did they ever do that? Because if they did I'm going to have to get onto Amazon Cars quickish and modify my order...

The chap I spoke to didn't seem to anticipate anything of the kind, didn't ask me any question that one might expect if there were two or more variants.

It would be nice if someone could answer this before the morning, please!

Thanks in advance...

[Sam Barker]

Hi Pigeon,
One for ClassicSwede for the detail but if he ain't around I bet it's like my 144, where the ball joints are pressed into the wishbone, and need to be drifted out using special tool Vz77653 according to the haynes, but looking at the picture, a huge G-clamp, and some huge sockets should press it out and the new one in. Or Phone Rob at Amazon Cars adn get him to explain how to change them!

Cheers

[Mike_Brace]

Yes, it is pressed in - it is possible to remove it without special tools. The easiest way is to completely remove the hub to give easy access. Having presoaked with penetrating oil, place a jack under the wishbone very close to the ball joint. Put the nut on the end of the old ball joint and making use of the available space and the heaviest hammer (say a 2lb lump hammer) you have and take out all your aggression in a serious manner and it will come out.
The new one will knock in fairly easily from the bottom.

Mike

[Pigeon]

Phew! It's manageable then. I've given it a good dose of penetrant already, I'll give it a couple more doses before the replacements arrive. I have a lump hammer, also a 14lb sledge, some large and robust sockets and a selection of bits of large steel pipe... if that doesn't work I know someone with a hydraulic press, so I could take the entire wishbone off and get him to do it.

Thanks a lot for that... load off my mind!

[Snowman]

Another easy way to get them out is to take the 164 on a rally, then they'll pop out easy as anything! Mine are tack welded in place........

[Pigeon]

Now you'll have me thinking about mass and inertia and second order differentials trying to work out how the stress reverses!

Anyway... thanks to all for the advice. The balljoints arrived today and it turned out to be quite an easy job. And an enjoyable one.

Car in the air, wheel off, axle stands on, full lock, jack under wishbone, nuts off, apply balljoint splitter. This is a tool which reminds me somewhat of experimenting with explosives. Ratchet... ratchet... ratchet... ratchet... BANG, the taper separates. Repeat for the other one. BANG. Hub out of the way, resting on blocks of wood arranged to avoid straining the brake lines.

The flue pipe supplied with my sister's boiler was longer than required so there is a piece of thick-walled 57mm ID aluminium tubing lying about. Just what is needed. Arrange tubing under bottom of wishbone around balljoint. Add steel plate underneath it, then blocks of wood to bring it to the right height.

C. p. volvensis is an extremely happy species of pigeon, not desirous of disturbing his joyful state by synthesising aggression to drive lump hammers. So he rolls a cigarette, gets out the blowtorch and spends twenty minutes increasing the internal energy of the end of the wishbone. The balljoint registers its objection by oozing molten gunk into the flame, where it is rapidly incinerated. More molten gunk makes its way stealthily into the bottom cup of the balljoint, in preparation to register its objection in a more effective manner.

With the black body radiation spectrum beginning to move into the visible region, the assembly is judged to be adequately heated. A long-reach 35mm impact socket is placed over the top of the balljoint, bearing on the rim of the balljoint, and the 14lb sledge is deployed. Doof. Doof... FWOOORRSSCCHHCHCHCCHHH. Molten gunk from the bottom cup of the balljoint is jolted into contact with the red-hot upper regions and a vast cloud of thick, dense, foul-smelling grey smoke pours out. Within seconds the 164 is hidden from view. Will it abate? No, it gets thicker. Smoke bombs have got nothing on a red hot balljoint. The garage door, closed against the chill wind, is rapidly reopened and gradually visibility is restored.

Back to the sledge. Doof. Doof. Doof-Clunk. The balljoint drops into the aluminium tube. Pigeon's grin gets even wider and thanks are given to the Lord.

In this case, reassembly is not the reverse of dismantling... I have a new balljoint, there is no need to gather the smoke cloud up and attempt to reverse the combustion process. The wishbone is allowed to cool and wire-brushed clean. The newly-exposed metal is phosphated, the new balljoint is given a good dose of copper grease and a succession of light but accurate blows from a normal-sized hammer on the rim of the joint seat it neatly in the wishbone. More copper grease is applied to tapers and threads, the hub and wheel refitted and the car returned to ground level.

The other side went equally smoothly. Not quite as easy as the pure spanner work of changing an Amazon balljoint, but arguably more fun.

[Mike_Brace]

I am glad that all went well.

Mike

My advice to anyone doing ball joints on those old beaters is just to pull the lower control arm completely off and take it to someone with a good hydraulic press and have them press it out and press the new one in. I am getting too old for all the do-it-yourself-jackwith without the right tools, and I don't heal as fast as I used to. Seeing as you need to get the car on an alignment rack once you are done anyway, you might as well make friends with the local quality alignment shop and have them do the in/out for you--anybody who is any good won't mind you doing some of the grunt work. Volvo makes pretty clear that the new ball joints, upper or lower, should be tack welded in, say 1/4" X 3, once they are pressed in. They are right on this--don't argue the point. Some folks nowadays--Suzuki to name one--want you to do a 100% weldin, which to me is a little spotty, as it is entirely too easy to overheat things with a welder and inadvertently cook the crap out of your new part. Oops.

More to the point, the facts of front end life are 1) Front ends don't last any longer than engines do, so you can figure on doing a complete front end about every time you do an engine,* and 2) front end components tend to wear out fairly evenly across the board. Replacing just one front end worn out component mostly doesn't make sense. Order of failure on these cars is generally 1) idler arm bushing 2) lower control arm bushings 3) lower ball joints and 3) everything else. Generally once the idler arm bushing goes, you've got some time on the rest of things--30K or so miles at least, generally, before the rest of the components start to crap out on you. By the time lower ball joints go, it is time to think about redoing everything and get the thing driving back to where it ought to be. On all these cars, I would automatically replace the lower control arm bushings at the same time as the ball joint as a matter of routine 'cuz they are, I guarantee, shot. They are fairly cheap and not at all tough for someone to press in/out. There will be a big and very noticeable improvement in ride and steering/handling once you do.


*Waal, sort of. Replacement front end parts nowadays tend to be crappy and somewhat to much inferior to original equipment. Part of our wonderful push to globalization--inferior cheap car rubber parts are made in China or India and sold here for a little cheaper than OE, and everybody is happy, right?

[classicswede]

Originally Posted by Dan White

*Waal, sort of. Replacement front end parts nowadays tend to be crappy and somewhat to much inferior to original equipment. Part of our wonderful push to globalization--inferior cheap car rubber parts are made in China or India and sold here for a little cheaper than OE, and everybody is happy, right?

It is the very poor quality of replacment rubber bushes that makes Polurathane the best option as a replacment. I hardly ever use rubber bushes anymore as its not normaly cost effective as the time is normaly more than the value of the parts. A lot of rubber bushes struggle to last 12 months.

[Pigeon]

The lower wishbone bushes - and the upper ones too - are indeed shot, IMO, the visible ends of them having that cauliflower-like appearance. They, along with the rest of the wearing surfaces in the suspension, are scheduled for replacement over the next few thousand miles. The balljoints were done first because the MoT man listed them as an advisory. I was somewhat surprised that he made no comment on any of the other parts, but he didn't.

I would like to replace the bushes with polyurethane items... the only worry I have is that I do not want to introduce any harshness to the ride; I would expect polyurethane bushes to let through some high-frequency components of road input which the rubber items are more effective at damping, and that would not be appropriate for a 164.

Morris Minor rubber bushes wear out a lot more quickly than Volvo ones do OTOH the trunnions have grease nipples