Mot Failures - Advice Appreciated

[Oberon 0]

Failed my mot on a few things, main ones which are

 

- Offside front suspension excessive play in a lower balljoint

- Off side front (drop link) Anti roll bar linkage has excessive play in a balljoint

 

Was wondering if it is a case of simply fitting new drop links and wishbones, if this is the case is there any thing else I should look out for/do whilst there ?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Baz 421]

New wishbone and drop-link yes.

[BusEngineer 7]

Just check your hub carrier isnt ovalled too, where the balljoint fits onto it

[Oberon 0]

Cheers .

 

Baz are you saying that doing one side is adequate, preferrably both ?

 

Busengineer should I check the hub first ?

 

Cheers

[Baz 421]

One side is adequate if that's all it's failed on sure!

[Oberon 0]

I hear what your saying Baz, I think I'll break my little sisters piggy bank though and get both of each.

Damn OCD gets me into all sorts of trouble.

 

I am thinking of doing the clips that hold the front antiroll bar to the sub frame aswell.

As I smacked the kerb on that side (mot fail side) in the snow. Anyone got a part number ?

 

Cheers.

[welshpug 1,645]

shouldn't need to replace those, its rare to need to change the bushes even.

 

hitting the kerb on that side wouldn't cause any ill effect to the ARB unless you seriously bent something, damage is limited to the wishbone and hub carrier, maybe track rods if its a hard enough impact but that can all be checked when you get the tracking sorted after the new wishbone.

[Oberon 0]

Cheers Welshpug, so I'll need to have the tracking done after wishbone then ?

 

I think it will be a case of wishbone as opposed to wishboneS then. ECP ones are over £100 for the pair.

 

Cheers.

[welshpug 1,645]

that's about the right price, it has been noted that Motaquip ones are the best to get as they are a reasonable price and have the correct spec bushes in them, many others have bushes that don't last too long at all.

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

Motaquip are just over £100 for geniune wishbones Oberon.

 

Im personally a believer of replacing most road car suspension parts in two's.

[Oberon 0]

Good advice. Motaquip sound good.

 

Yes Ed, I will probably do both you are right.

 

I did a quick search Matt reckoned the motaquip ones were £35 each, but down south we tend to get stung as a norm.

 

I'm gonna get on the phone to get some prices.

 

As for the hub carriers am I just visually looking for ovalling ? Should they be hard to get out ?

 

When I did the CV gaiters I remember the balljoints coming out without much resistance.

 

This is starting to feel expensive.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Oberon

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

The ones I got from Motaquip about 2 months back were 109.96.

 

Might start to feel expensive but the drive should totally change (for the good!) when its all repaired!

[jimistdt 1]

I priced up Motaquip 'bones yesterday/day before? £40 +VAT each, phone 'round a few places first Raj, save your sister some money.

[Anthony 1,002]

Check what the fault is first before spending money randomly replacing parts!

 

In my experience, excessive play "in the balljoint" is more often than not either an ovalled hub or the clamp bolt being loose, rather than the wishbone balljoint itself. Takes 5 minutes to jack the car up and see what the issue is, and better doing that than spending £££'s on parts that might not even fix the issue.

[pug_ham 243 3 Cars]

As said by Jimi, we found Motaquip wishbones locally for £40 + vat so ring round or track down you local motaquip supplier for a good price.

 

Wishbones can be replaced individually as required but I always replace droplinks in pairs, if ones dead the other probably isn't far behind.

 

Graham.

[Oberon 0]

How it going Jimi, yea I'm gonna phone round now.

 

Did you do your suspension recently jimi ?

Oh, thats if you can tell us.

 

Yea Ed I hope it'll make a big improvement, it does a kind of jump round over any crack in the road at the mo.

But from reading some posts on the subject there could be more at play. Logical place to start though.

 

Anthony, thank you mate thats the sort of pearl that I needed to hear right now, gonna jack that baby up before any phoning.

 

The mot monkey man got a four foot lever to check my suspension, do I also need to use a ridiculously long bar to check it ?

 

Cheers guys

[Oberon 0]

Cheers for the advice all.

 

Got boggo 1 wishbone and two droplinks from ECP in the end.

 

The bushes in the removed wishbone were still good, balljoint being the culprit. Be interesting to see if the old bone outlives

 

the new one which after a search I tightened slightly down from horizontal.

 

One job half ticked off the ever growing list.

[jimistdt 1]

When's the re-test?

 

Good luck with it.

[Oberon 0]

PASSED today

 

Only a few advisories like the brake hoses and dodgy headlight.

 

Had to adjust the fuel pump timing to get rid of some thick black smoke and clean the caliper pistons to rectify unbalanced braking at the front.

 

Also found that my top engine mount was sheared in half, when changing it. I knew it was fooked but it was literally in two pieces.

 

Doing these bits and pieces has given me some motivation to start working through my long ass list though, so s'all good as they say.

 

Cheers Jimi

 

Edited August 30, 2009 by Oberon