Vehicle & Technical > Defender

Fitting a Drop arm ball joint kit?

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Range Rover Blues:
I havn't got a clue what you are on about there mate :?   but heating the thing up, that's about making it get bigger and loose it's grip on the thing it's wrapped around surely, or is it just getting our own back on it?, personally I like to hit stuff for that reason :roll:

mmgemini:

--- Quote from: "Range Rover Blues" ---I havn't got a clue what you are on about there mate :?   but heating the thing up, that's about making it get bigger and loose it's grip on the thing it's wrapped around surely, or is it just getting our own back on it?, personally I like to hit stuff for that reason :roll:
--- End quote ---


Exactly.
So when the drop arn breakes due to the metal crystalizing you'll know what you've done.
The drop arm is forged. ANY heat will take away ALL the work done by the forge.
Of course you could use heat, then send the drop arm to have it normalised again.
There's three ways of doing the job.
The right
The wrong
The government.

The right way in this case is to change the drop arm ball joint in situ.
If the drop arm ball joint wont play the game then I take the steering box outy and pay a company to use their press.
 Simple and no worries about unseen damage. Hey but what would I know as a time served fitter/mechanic that's done a course in metalurgy.

stageonesimmo:
I agree with Mike on the heat thing - dont do it, ever.

Anyway, to get out of that argument - a good DIY tip for doing it in situ is to use a mastic gun as they are much more common and cheaper than 'G' clamps (the end where the nozzle of the tube would be goes over the top of the joint and the 'piston' is used to push the pin and all of the associated gubbins up into the body leaving your hands freee to muck about with the circlip pliers)  - works a treat - just showed one of my younger lads how to do it only this morning - he'd been on it for an hour and had been cir-cliped in the eye twice, I came along and it was done in 2 minutes - he did it, I just told him how - so if an 18 year old sprog VM in my place can do it, why arrse about taking the thing off when its not necessary....

muck_truck:
have you managed to do your ball joint ?

i did mine tonight, well took it all apart, still waiting for the kit to turn up  :roll:

The arm came off mine with a few taps from a hammer, literally fell off.  Getting the top race out was proving to be a problem, made a little cut so i could get a punch on didnt work.

But what did work very well was to put the main ball joint piece back into the arm the wrong way round (from the top) rested the arm on the vice and belted it twice with a hammer, that moved the race.  Then i used a 14mm socket that was tapered in shape that fit in nicely and tapped it all the way out.

easy.  :D

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