Club 80-90 Forums

Re. Lemförder 10162 02

My pickup just failed MOT on 'suspension arm ball joint excessively worn offside front upper'. Which was a bit of surpise as there were no symptoms apparent. More concerning is they've only been fitted 3 years and have done only ~20k.

When I got them, one of the tappings on each joint was skewed and I had to drill through and use a nut. No prizes for guessing where they were made..

As the original OEMs such as Lemförder, ATE, TRW etc downgrade the manfacturing quality of parts for older vehicles by moving them to China, I am wondering if it might be worth looking at 'cheaper' brands, eg. Febi which allegedly may still be sourcing components from EU manufacturers.

Anyway, I've ordered a pair each made by JP Group and by Febi, so I can compare them for apparent quality. 

I fitted some febi ones from gsf recently and they looked well engineered, clear rubber/plastic boots , which suggests some rubber deterioration has been addressed , they looked excellent, new bolts too . Be interesting to see how they last

I know that there was a load of TRW ones doing the rounds a while back that had cockeyed tappings...

I'm just about to fit some Lemförder ones. I got them from AutoDoc. The box says made in Germany so maybe it's older stock?



There's a tiny bit of surface rust on the bottom of both.

Today I was dismayed to note that TRW are now apparently part of the ZF group, as is the Lemförder brand. So ZF may now be peddling the same chinese "pooh" under two different 'fake' brands.

Hi James, that's interesting, 'cos the part number is different..

Maybe they had a different pn for the german and chinese versions ?

(Frantic Google ensues..)

PS. I loves a bit of surface rust on NOS parts, often an encouraging sign

PPS. 10159 03 is the lower balljoint, so the box in the pic doesn't match the part.
 

Well spotted!

Sorry. It's just me being careless which box I put the ball joints back in. (I'm doing all three).

These say made in Germany too. Just checked my emails and I got the uppers from Brickwerks.



Threads seem fine on both.

What date did you get the 'Made in Germany' uppers ?

23 April 2020. They were £12.90 from this link.

Says they're out of stock but maybe drop Simon and Martin an email?

The boxes in the pic are for the lower balljoint and the tie rod end, not for the upper balljoint.

PS. Also, I'd suggest not changing any balljoints that are still servicable, and until the MOT man says to, as any replacements are likely to last a fraction of the time of the originals.

I'd had an advisory on slight play on a steering rack inner joint for three years. This time I decided to sort it, and I re-used an old tie-rod from a 30 year old spare rack that was still fine. All the other components on the 30 year old rack I was servicing were still fine and went back on the vehicle.

 

Haha. Still not got it right. I was very tired yesterday. I'll go back to the van for a third time and get the right boxes.

Too late for me as they're all off but I agree about not replacing them for the sake of it.

My upper ball joints were fused solid with no movement, tie rods had slight play. The lower ball joints were probably fine.
 

Replaced my nearside one with heavy duty ones from Heritage as the existing one had a split in the boot, supplied with bolts and felt ok.  On refitting I noticed that the steering rack gaiter on that side was also split, I think I may have caused that by letting the steering knuckle drop to far when changing the ball joint as did not notice it before. Replacing that is another story. 

Just checked the footage I filmed. Can't find the box as I never had any in the first place! They came loose from Brickwerks inside a nice Lemförder tote bag. I presume they are German NOS, but could very well be Chinese.