Thought I'd put this under faults, because that's where people will look if they need to do theirs,, (mods, feel free to move it, apologies in advance)
did my front drop links yesterday and it was a bit of a palava so I thought Id give a bit of a heads up to anyone about to do theirs
firstly it took me about an hour to get the car jacked up right but that's just because my trolley jack is leaking.. lol, took ages to work that out.. because the jack is actually for bigger cars like landrovers it needs a high entry point, so I have to use the scissor jack first to get clearance, then the trolley jack, then an axle stand, then repeat on the other side. obviously with a leaky jack this process is somewhat hindered lol
(obvious maybe, but when doing your droplinks you need both wheels to be in the same state, i.e. both up, or both down. otherwise the rollbar is twisted and it goes ping when you pop the old ones out, also you'll never get the new ones in this way)
anyway.. so, now up on axle stands, wheels off. simple enough. (At this point I did the brake pads but that was simple as with any other car. done in 20mins)
The old drop links were held on by a 14mm nut, onto a stud with a hex key hole bored into the end (to stop the balljoint turning while you loosen / tighten)
WARNING!!! of the 4 fixtures, 3 of mine rounded out the allen key hole in seconds.
I had sprayed the living ***** out of them with wd40 first, and before getting involved with the allen key I had a socket on them and went back and forth a bit, to get them loosened from the wishbone / roll bar first. don't want that added friction stopping the nut from turning and causing even more damage to the allen key hole.
regardless, that didn't really go too well and as I said, I've rounded out the allen key holes on 3. got one off though, so getting there.
where one had loosened enough, I did manage to get a junior hacksaw in there (on the balljoint side, but you must be able to get the blade on the stud, not the wider part that stops it getting pulled through because a: you'll be there all day and b: it won't punch through anyway will it
so by this point I have one side done, and one side with rounded out holes and progressively rounder and rounder nuts.. at this point worth noting that the bottom wishbones are shaped in such a way that you can't get much of your socket on the nut, so it's spanners most of the way there
in the end I realised that swearing at it, drinking tea and smoking a *** was getting me nowhere, so out comes the angle grinder. cut the ******* off. however, as mentioned above, you have to be able to get at the thread from the back side, so to speak, and as you probably know getting an angle grinder in there is awkward. so I'm now left with the link gone, but both holes filled with a stud that has an unremovable bolt on one end and basically a massive rivet head on the other..
fortunately I have a power file, so an hour or so and many many swearwords later i managed to file and grind it down to the point where I can get a punch and a hammer and punch it through, this is easier on the wishbone which is solid, harder on the rollbar which in retrospect I probably should have braced up in some way. kept twanging around when you hit it, obviously. hardly any force applied directly to the bolt
anyway so now I have both removed. YAY
one wishbone and one end of the roll bar are now slightly marked by my efforts with the grinder and powerfile so I smooth that out a little, clean it up and spray a bunch of hammerite on there for now.
bolted the new ones on, and noticed straight away the new nuts are larger (lemforder links - 17mm nut now, up from 14mm previous) so although getting the top one to FT is easy enough, the bottom one is even more awkward to tighten because of wishbone shape. you can get them on there with a good few mm of thread cleared though..
then, i cleared up all the tools, put a plaster on my hand to fix the worst of the injuries (between club hammer, punch, and wishbone.. ow) and got the wheels back on.
then I dragged the ramps out from the under the big pile of weeds at the bottom of the garden, and drove up them (chocked the back wheels!!) and then because the wishbones are up more (under weight) the bottom nut straightens out some and you can get the spanner on there better.
gave it a test run around the block, no knocking sounds, did those little half speed bump things one side then the other.. all good I think
I now want to get to the bottom of an oil leak so its up on stands again this afternoon to jetwash and scrub, so I can monitor any new leaks etc. will see if I can tighten them up a bit more then
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end of rant
-------------
if you have anything to add re: ways I could have saved myself hours of effort please do feel free to comment, I like hearing about other methods
did my front drop links yesterday and it was a bit of a palava so I thought Id give a bit of a heads up to anyone about to do theirs
firstly it took me about an hour to get the car jacked up right but that's just because my trolley jack is leaking.. lol, took ages to work that out.. because the jack is actually for bigger cars like landrovers it needs a high entry point, so I have to use the scissor jack first to get clearance, then the trolley jack, then an axle stand, then repeat on the other side. obviously with a leaky jack this process is somewhat hindered lol
(obvious maybe, but when doing your droplinks you need both wheels to be in the same state, i.e. both up, or both down. otherwise the rollbar is twisted and it goes ping when you pop the old ones out, also you'll never get the new ones in this way)
anyway.. so, now up on axle stands, wheels off. simple enough. (At this point I did the brake pads but that was simple as with any other car. done in 20mins)
The old drop links were held on by a 14mm nut, onto a stud with a hex key hole bored into the end (to stop the balljoint turning while you loosen / tighten)
WARNING!!! of the 4 fixtures, 3 of mine rounded out the allen key hole in seconds.
I had sprayed the living ***** out of them with wd40 first, and before getting involved with the allen key I had a socket on them and went back and forth a bit, to get them loosened from the wishbone / roll bar first. don't want that added friction stopping the nut from turning and causing even more damage to the allen key hole.
regardless, that didn't really go too well and as I said, I've rounded out the allen key holes on 3. got one off though, so getting there.
where one had loosened enough, I did manage to get a junior hacksaw in there (on the balljoint side, but you must be able to get the blade on the stud, not the wider part that stops it getting pulled through because a: you'll be there all day and b: it won't punch through anyway will it
so by this point I have one side done, and one side with rounded out holes and progressively rounder and rounder nuts.. at this point worth noting that the bottom wishbones are shaped in such a way that you can't get much of your socket on the nut, so it's spanners most of the way there
in the end I realised that swearing at it, drinking tea and smoking a *** was getting me nowhere, so out comes the angle grinder. cut the ******* off. however, as mentioned above, you have to be able to get at the thread from the back side, so to speak, and as you probably know getting an angle grinder in there is awkward. so I'm now left with the link gone, but both holes filled with a stud that has an unremovable bolt on one end and basically a massive rivet head on the other..
fortunately I have a power file, so an hour or so and many many swearwords later i managed to file and grind it down to the point where I can get a punch and a hammer and punch it through, this is easier on the wishbone which is solid, harder on the rollbar which in retrospect I probably should have braced up in some way. kept twanging around when you hit it, obviously. hardly any force applied directly to the bolt
anyway so now I have both removed. YAY
one wishbone and one end of the roll bar are now slightly marked by my efforts with the grinder and powerfile so I smooth that out a little, clean it up and spray a bunch of hammerite on there for now.
bolted the new ones on, and noticed straight away the new nuts are larger (lemforder links - 17mm nut now, up from 14mm previous) so although getting the top one to FT is easy enough, the bottom one is even more awkward to tighten because of wishbone shape. you can get them on there with a good few mm of thread cleared though..
then, i cleared up all the tools, put a plaster on my hand to fix the worst of the injuries (between club hammer, punch, and wishbone.. ow) and got the wheels back on.
then I dragged the ramps out from the under the big pile of weeds at the bottom of the garden, and drove up them (chocked the back wheels!!) and then because the wishbones are up more (under weight) the bottom nut straightens out some and you can get the spanner on there better.
gave it a test run around the block, no knocking sounds, did those little half speed bump things one side then the other.. all good I think
I now want to get to the bottom of an oil leak so its up on stands again this afternoon to jetwash and scrub, so I can monitor any new leaks etc. will see if I can tighten them up a bit more then
--------
end of rant
-------------
if you have anything to add re: ways I could have saved myself hours of effort please do feel free to comment, I like hearing about other methods
