Club 80-90 Forums

My van passed its MOT this week, but it had some advisories. One of them referred to slight play in the offside drag link end ball joint. I'm struggling to identify this part. Is it better known as something else? Can someone point me to a diagram showing this part, or perhaps a link to the park on JK or Brickwerks?

*E D I T: I have no doubt the garage will clarify what they mean if I ask, but I thought you guys would know.

Tie rod end. Its just a mini ball joint really.

Is that also called a track rod end - like this?

That's the bit where Edd China keeps telling everyone to count the number of turns needed to remove it, so that the new one can go on without changing the geometry - is that right?

Spot on Chris. Hey I guess you heard Neil got his heater going?

CovKid wrote:Spot on Chris. Hey I guess you heard Neil got his heater going?

I did - just in time for the summer

Trick with those protex heaters is to fit one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-LCD-Digit ... 337a44f60a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That way when the rest of the street is totally frozen solid in the depths of winter you can come out to a warm and completely defrosted camper. Intitially I used to have to go out there at 6am and turn it on, then by switching it on via the tracker, and now just using the timer. Wonderful things Propex heaters....

Tie rod end should be evident once you jack it up Chris. Easy enough job to do. Might be worth checking tracking afterwards. You can do that at home though.

CovKid wrote:Trick with those protex heaters is to fit one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-LCD-Digit ... 337a44f60a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That way when the rest of the street is totally frozen solid in the depths of winter you can come out to a warm and completely defrosted camper. Intitially I used to have to go out there at 6am and turn it on, then by switching it on via the tracker, and now just using the timer. Wonderful things Propex heaters

I use a radio controlled relay with a keyfob type transmitter

Plus I use a re-fillable "Safefill" gas bottle which works out so cheap I don't have to worry about the cost of running the Propex as much/often as I want

CovKid wrote: Tie rod end should be evident once you jack it up Chris. Easy enough job to do. Might be worth checking tracking afterwards. You can do that at home though.

Yes, changing the ball joint seems straightforward - I'll probably do the pair of them since they're not expensive. I also had a 'strong advisory' (i.e. "you're lucky we're letting you get away with this - fix it soon!") for one of the upper ball joints, so I'll probably do the pair of them too. Oh, and 'fluctuating' rear brakes - time to get to grips with them at last.

OK, so is there a write-up for doing the tracking myself? There's a tyre place in town that has a pair of floating plates in the floor, and it always seems so quick and easy for them that I can't imagine it's worth my while trying to do it at home, especially as there's nowhere on my drive that's anywhere near flat.

ghost123uk wrote: Plus I use a re-fillable "Safefill" gas bottle which works out so cheap I don't have to worry about the cost of running the Propex as much/often as I want

Refillable gas is the key - so much cheaper than buying it in pre-filled bottles, plus you don't need to carry a spare. I used my Propex for the first time at Bustypes in April, and was so glad I'd fitted it. It ran for much of the weekend, and used hardly any gas.

Top balljoints are pretty easy to do. Just make absolutely sure when you fit new ones that you've angled the joint so the two allen key holes that hold it on, not only line up but are flush against each other so you don't chew out the threads when refitting those small bolts. I say this because I've now got a nut holding one of my bolts in place

You get a sense of whats what after you've done various jobs on front suspension and steering. Keep on top of rubber boots as they fail anything like that straight away so if you're ahead of the tester you should find you pass every time. If I find a boot with evidence of the rubber cracking, I just swap it out - saves grief later on. You can get boots for tie rods so if its in very good condition other than boot, you could just replace the rubber - as everyone used to do in the old days. On ball joints its simpler to change the whole joint.

It sounds like the MOT tester miss named the track rod (assuming you took a T25 in for test).) Drag link is the arm/rod between a steering box and the track rods. T25's don't have one, bay windows do.

bigherb wrote:...assuming you took a T25 in for test...

I did.

bigherb wrote:T25's don't have one, bay windows do.

That explains the difficulty I was having finding one for a T25.

Any advice on what sort of splitter is suitable for the track rod ends and/or the top ball joints? Is something like this (Draper 13914 19mm Capacity Ball Joint Separator) suitable? I don't know which dimension the '19mm capacity' refers to (nor the corresponding size of these two joints).

Yes, that's the type I use. Sometimes the joint won't release just by tightening the separator. It just needs a gentle tap with a hammer to shock it free. It can release with quite a bang, so be ready for that.

colinthefox wrote:Yes, that's the type I use. Sometimes the joint won't release just by tightening the separator. It just needs a gentle tap with a hammer to shock it free. It can release with quite a bang, so be ready for that.

Brilliant - thanks Colin.