Hello Knowledgeable people...... .... most of you are probably enjoying your B/H weekend away with your vans..... or just relaxing (Our bus is still up on Axle stands.... We did get the gear box reassembled - yes ... but now working on the front of the bus - had a horrible Friday working on the van - so close.... yet so far.....) Anyways, we have dropped both front hubs off, removed the steering rods, laughed as the rubber boots fell apart..... We now know that we need to replace the two lower front ball joints...... (do we do all four ball joints while it's in the garage?) Any advice, suggestions or watch out for information information would be really, really helpful. The van is lowered - not sure if we need a stronger ball joint. At moment thinking of getting MPN 211405371A from Mega Bug £18 Thanking you all in advance. Jude & John Oh yes - our 'Fun Friday' also consisted of the speedo cable snapping off.... hard working upside down on the steering rods .... &... to top it of one of the copper brake pipes on the back of the brake caliper started to leak.... it broke!!!! - new paint job & brake fluid...... 'F.U.N'
Lowered bus with ball joints the right way up ( nuts down ) still places the same load on the joints as stock. The only real choice is between standard and oversize ball joints - if standard ones go in too easily you need oversize.. Buying ball joints is easy and cheap. Fitting them is hard work. Several tons of force are needed. You will need an adaptor plate and a press either hydraulic or screw based : the heavy duty ball joint kits on eBay can press the new joint in but not remove it. You can remove the old ball joint with care and an angle grinder and a lot of hacksawing. But you are still looking at £80 ish for tools : the adaptor plate (search this site for the adaptor plate) and a ball joint press. Whoever does it must line up the notch and marks on the ball joint when pressing the new one in. Not even all professionals get it right it seems. Getting it wrong causes clunking or failed joints ( wheel half falls off as ball joint shears) .
Well, update on the ball joint fitting. Cool Air do a fitting service. We are planning take the 4 torsion arms that hold the ball joints off the van tomorrow. Cool Air have a 60 tonne press to get the old ball joints out & will fit the new ones. Lucky for us we can drive to Cool Air.
Is there anything actually wrong with the ball joints you’ve got already? You may regret changing them. See other balljoint thread.
If you are paying somebody to do it, check the notch in the ball joint lines up with the tab on the suspension arm. If it is not bang in the middle within a couple of millimetres, complain. Even big names in the aircooled business employ humans who make mistakes from time to time. And while you are taking torsion arms off, might as well check the bearings in the tubes. But rule 1 of old VWs is "unless it leaves the bus as a box of rust or is dangerous, keep the OG hardware as long as possible". Just because there is a shiny new part sitting there, resist the temptation to replace something that might just need a rubber boot or cleaning up. Seriously consider following through the correct sequence of progressively jacking up under the suspension and trying wobbling each ball joint, as would be done in the MOT. The lower one unloads first, then the upper one as you keep jacking under the lower arm AFAIR. You may find only the lower joints wobble when unloaded, and the upper ones are good. In my case that was 50% correct : and the joint that I left is still going strong . But also be aware that the bus may rise up off the axle stands and become a bit unstable as you push up on the suspension with a jack, so be careful about grabbing bits and heaving, use a lever between parts of the suspension : a bus will stand on the two rear wheels and one front wheel or on a jack on one side under a lower front suspension arm.
