undoing ball joints

[freebee]

I am about to swap wisbones, with nyloc nuts fitted to the ball joints ,how do you stop the joint spinning when you are trying to undothe nut??

[DCL]

Some of the better ones have a hex socket in the threaded section - worth a look!. If not run them down with a plain nut, then remove and replace with nyloc (you can file off the lock section on an old nut). Edit: there shouldn't be an issue undoing them as the taper will be tight and need a splitter to undo.

Edited by DCL on Friday 6th September 11:58

[mat13]

A lot of them if you wedge a pry bar in you can jam them tight enough against the nut that you can undo them, kinda hard to explain what i mean though.

[Snake the Sniper]

Try stranding on the back of the joint. All you need to do is get enough force to allow the taper to bite and you'll be fine.

[Grubbster]

Either allen key in hex at the bottom, or ratchet strap the wishbones together to pull the taper into the hole nice and tight.

[TeflonT]

Grubbster said:

or ratchet strap the wishbones together

Brilliant! Seven owners ingenuity in problem solving is endless.

[TeflonT]

Grubbster said:

or ratchet strap the wishbones together

Brilliant! Seven owners ingenuity in problem solving is endless.

[mickrick]

The Op is talking about undoing the nut.

I doubt the ball joint taper will budge anyway.. I´ve always had to use a splitter, or give the edge of the steering arm a sharp tap with a brummie screwdriver.

[BertBert]

If perchance you do get stuck with a nyloc and a spinning joint (as it were), you can always take a blowtorch to the nyloc and melt the plastic out! Of course you should take appropriate precautions not to set light to your person or the car!

I had to do this when Caterham parts sent out the wrong grade of nyloc. No amount of standing, ratchet strapping, swearing, kicking of the cat would get the nut done up or undone. Removed it with the blowtorch trick, got the proper nyloc and it all went together fine.

Bert

[JB052]

mickrick said:

The Op is talking about undoing the nut.

I doubt the ball joint taper will budge anyway.. I´ve always had to use a splitter, or give the edge of the steering arm a sharp tap with a brummie screwdriver.

As above, splitter if you have one, if not a sharp hard tap with a hammer on the side of the steering arm where the joint goes through will release the taper.

[Snake the Sniper]

JB052 said:

As above, splitter if you have one, if not a sharp hard tap with a hammer on the side of the steering arm where the joint goes through will release the taper.

He's talking about stopping the joint spinning whilst undoing the nut, so the taper has already released. It's getting it tight enough to undo the nut without jamming it in that he's after.

[tomwoodis]

If ive inderstood which bit you are undoing correctly then i think I had this issue at the weekend too. Wanted to make adjustments to the track rod ends as the tracking was well out. To start with I thought I'd threaded the nut as I couldn't undo it. Imagine how stupid I felt when I realised the whole thing was spinning and not just the nut

I got someone to push down hard on the top of the track rod end. There was enough friction to stop the joint spinning such that I could then undo the nut. Try that and see how you get on.

The other approach that I could see working is if you could apply outward pressure between the joint and the nut at the same time as undoing it. Some kind of level between but and joint perhaps?

Try the former approach first as is much simpler to set up.

I could of course be referring to completely the wrong part of he car in which case ignore me

Tom

[CharlesElliott]

Tom - you know that you can adjust the tracking without splitting the ball joint, right?

[tomwoodis]

I presume you are going to say that the track rod itself can be rotated to make the adjustment having first undone the locking nut?

the tracking was so out that I thought it would be easiest just to get it roughly right by taking off the TRE's and rotating them around a few times.

[cseven]

when I did mine I found that a trolley jack underneath and me standing on top gave me enough compression to then undo the nut

[Grubbster]

tomwoodis said:

I presume you are going to say that the track rod itself can be rotated to make the adjustment having first undone the locking nut?

the tracking was so out that I thought it would be easiest just to get it roughly right by taking off the TRE's and rotating them around a few times.

Just push the rubber gaitor back towards the rack to expose a 'flat' on the track rod, then you can loosen the locknut on the other end and easily adjust it by turning the trackrod, no need to disconnect from the hob end at all.

[tomwoodis]

aha, that make sense.

[freebee]

Thanks guys, I have used most of these methods in the past, I was hoping that somebody would reveal a neat trick of the trade, or tool that would take away the pain!