Ball Joints

Today I did what I planned, I removed the last nut on the broken ball joints and removed the stub axle and drum assembly from the old sub frame ready to bolt onto the new subframe.

I dragged the new subframe over from the shed and assembled it with cleaned bolts and washers. I then bolted on the new steering rack I have had for a while and wheeled the whole lot under the car and jacked it up into place, with a little jiggery pokery I had the unit bolted up and in place with all 8 bolts nice and tight, and the steering coupling in place.

From here onwards it started to go down hill so I have called it a night earlier than I allotted. I suspected that the car without an engine would not have sufficient weight to press down on the ball joints and enable me to tighten the nuts up. So right now I am a little stuck unable to tighten either the top or bottom ball joint nuts. Not because I cannot close the gap but because they just rotate in their sockets.

So that’s tomorrow job, tidy up the mess of stripping and retro fitting a subframe to the car, and to work out a method to tighten the two ball joint nuts on each side. Once that’s done I can get it back on all four wheel and one is ready to roll it out of the workshop. I can also get back to more interesting things like interior, wiring, engine, gearbox and exhausts