Club 80-90 Forums

My van got advisories last year for the upper dust boot, anti-roll bar bushes etc, and because I didn't get around to changing them, it got a fail on them this year. I did the anti-roll bar bushes & steering gaiter myself. But after laying under the van in the road I decided that it was going to need a BIG spanner & probably a lot of heat to get the upper mount apart. In the end I paid the garage to struggle with fitting the dust cover.

Mine with same engine as you failed on same issues.

Got covered from vw heritage, and sent to CTC in Crawley.

Unfortunately needed a new engine to sort the emissions.

Ball joint covers required cracking ball joints etcetera, and so thought it better to give to a pro that can do it in 5 mins, instead me bodge it in a day. Money well spent.

Hope you get it fixed.

Ball joint rubbers were quite common as a single part at one time, disappearing in favour of 'units' only to return in times of austerity. Usually grit works its way in, accelerating wear in the joint but like a lot of things on cars/vans, if you know the history, a new rubber may be all thats needed, particularly if no wear is evident. If an unknown, then whole ball joint is easily the best solution. Same applies to clutches. I don't always replace the whole clutch every time - I usually just swap the friction plate if it had a complete one the last time. I do get the 'peace of mind' approach but equally replacements can sometimes be a mere shadow of the part you're replacing and as they say, a fool and his money are easily parted. Besides which, I was a mechanic not a fitter and theres a big difference. You can train monkeys to be fitters - hail gasket paper.

Replacing the ball joints can be a bit of a pain especially the lower ones. Usually requires a special tool or access to a hydraulic press once you have got the steering knuckle (stub axle to you and me) off.

Alternative is to fit a new boot, a few people on here have used these guys http://www.balljointboots.co.uk/index.html.

If the ball joint is worn through dirt ingress, the new boot won't help though and any play in the joint will cause an MoT failure anyway, so sometimes the first loss is the best loss, i.e. take the hit on getting someone to replace the ball joints now cause you will end up having to do it anyway sooner or later

HTH

MM

Wear in the lower ball joint is not an automatic mot fail...a percentage of play is allowed...also vws own repair book states only replace if boot is torn....due to the design of the suspension play in the joint is not actually a problem as such...the joint is loaded when in use.