Front Ball Joints

[Anonymous]

Are the top ball joints adjustable in any way?

[Anonymous]

Yes. Loosen the large locknut and tighten or loosen the circular nut, the item with two slots, that it surrounds. I had a tool made out of flat stock with a nut welded to one edge which goes in the slots and is turned with a socket. Sure makes it easy. The thing to do is to remove the entire unit and clean it up on a wire wheel, coat it liberally in anti-sieze compound, then reassemble.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have only just joined the forum but have been a TOC member since the dawn of time membership no 15.I am a little concerned about the advice given about the adjustment of the front suspension ball joints. These joints are only adjustable by the removal of shims between the upper and lower cups. The cups should be clamped together so they cannot move within their housings. For the top joint the cap should be tightened to 36 foot pounds and then the locking ring to 57.5 foot pounds. The workshop manual is a bit wooly in this area. It would appear that the purpose of the cap and lock ring is to adjust the ball joint but this is not the case. If adjustment is made by just tightening the cap until the play disappears and the cups are not clamped up tight it allows the cups to move within the housing and this will cause excessive wear and judder under braking as the balls and caps chatter in their housings.

Ideally the cups and balls should be lapped in, using valve grinding paste, a lathe and special tools to hold the ball and cups, then the large spacer should be surface ground to give the correct clearance between the ball and cups. I have recently done this job on my car and been involved with another member who has also done this. It is a terrible job that is extremely time consuming. If done properly the results are spectacular and the improvement in steering and brake judder very noticeable. I hope this helps.

p.s. The bottom joint is exactly the same principle but the cups are clamped together by introducing shims and spacers between the cup and the bottom cap which is held on with bolts.

[Anonymous]

There are shims in the upper ball joint? There weren’t any in the 3 Tractions that I have had. Doing as I describe always seemed to work well. Tighten it, then back off a bit so it moves freely and all is well. On my Light 15, I removed the upper and lower races and switched them around and eventually with occasional adjustment they bedded in and were fine. I did it that way as the joints were heavily worn from use on unpaved African roads and I figured why spend the money on expensive ball joint kits if I didn’t have to.

[Anonymous]

The top ball joint I remember having a few issues with. I not sure that someone mentioned taking out the middle ring spacer altogether as it was really not necessary.

the bottom ball joint I went ahead and bought the adjustable units – now that makes like a lot easier (after days of messing around with shims)

And welcome tractionavant1939 – good to have more knowledge base on the forum.

[Anonymous]

The spacer ring and shims are essential so that the cups can be clamped tightly together and give the ball the correct movement. If the nuts are backed off to achieve movement of the balls the cups will chatter in the housings as stated before. The “adjustable” bottom fitting are just to tighten the cups in the housing the same as the top joints, again these should not be backed off to achieve the correct movement.

I have posted this as the correct way to assemble the swivel joints as there is a lot of misinformation on this particular subject. How each person choses to setup his or her car is of course their own choice.

Happy tractioning.

[Author]

Posts