Mustang suspension...
The wife trotted off to Manchester this weekend to see some college friends whom she hadn't met for about 8 years, and, by a remarkable coincidence, the bits I'd ordered from 50resto turned up. So, armed with a hugely inflated confidence and a nice warm morning, I decide to replace the lower ball joints...
It all started with the nice MOT man spotting that there was some up-and-down play in the front lower ball joints (last September).
"I can't fail it 'cos the guidelines say I can't, but I'd like to..."
What can be hard about taking off the wheel and undoing 3 nuts? Nothing, except that the disk brake back plate very neatly gets in the way of the lower arm - so you have to remove the disk and brake caliper.
Now the trouble with a 1½ tonne 1990 Ford Mustang is that they're over-engineered - and those three nuts are actually torqued up to 100 ft/lb. Which is fine, but you have to balance said 1½ tonnes two feet in the air on axle stands to be able to get on a bar long enough to undo them. (No, I don't have a pit!). Oh, and you have to have an internal spring compressor to get off the front road springs. Did you know that Halfords don't sell them? No? Did you guess that?
I did some research about removing the ball joints. The best piece of advice found was "...pound the crap out of them with a lump hammer, bearing in mind that the wishbones are pressed steel." The Chiltern manual actually says that they're integral to the wishbone and you have to replace the whole assembly. Not so.
They came out easily (after some crap-pounding).
What didn't come out easily were the inner neoprene mounting bushes. I ended up grinding them out with an angle grinder and pounding the crap out of them too.
Putting them back was, err, interesting too. But with ingenious use of a 4" vice, an old ball bearing outer race, some grease and a long bit of exhaust pipe to get that extra leverage on the vice handle I managed to do all four. If anyone is actually reading this because they want to change the lower arm bushes, then make sure that the larger of the two is NOT pushed completely home - leave about a 2mm gap between the bush flange and the wishbone. It's worthwhile fitting it with a larger gap, offering up the wishbone to the chassis points and getting the position correct.
My vice opens to 4½", the ball joints are 4½" and a bit long.
I know when I'm beat, maybe the manual1 is right.
Was this helpful to you? yes, no.
1No it's not, it's crap, just like the paper it's printed on.
Thanks.
Oh well, sorry.
It all started with the nice MOT man spotting that there was some up-and-down play in the front lower ball joints (last September).
"I can't fail it 'cos the guidelines say I can't, but I'd like to..."
What can be hard about taking off the wheel and undoing 3 nuts? Nothing, except that the disk brake back plate very neatly gets in the way of the lower arm - so you have to remove the disk and brake caliper.
Now the trouble with a 1½ tonne 1990 Ford Mustang is that they're over-engineered - and those three nuts are actually torqued up to 100 ft/lb. Which is fine, but you have to balance said 1½ tonnes two feet in the air on axle stands to be able to get on a bar long enough to undo them. (No, I don't have a pit!). Oh, and you have to have an internal spring compressor to get off the front road springs. Did you know that Halfords don't sell them? No? Did you guess that?
I did some research about removing the ball joints. The best piece of advice found was "...pound the crap out of them with a lump hammer, bearing in mind that the wishbones are pressed steel." The Chiltern manual actually says that they're integral to the wishbone and you have to replace the whole assembly. Not so.
They came out easily (after some crap-pounding).
What didn't come out easily were the inner neoprene mounting bushes. I ended up grinding them out with an angle grinder and pounding the crap out of them too.
Putting them back was, err, interesting too. But with ingenious use of a 4" vice, an old ball bearing outer race, some grease and a long bit of exhaust pipe to get that extra leverage on the vice handle I managed to do all four. If anyone is actually reading this because they want to change the lower arm bushes, then make sure that the larger of the two is NOT pushed completely home - leave about a 2mm gap between the bush flange and the wishbone. It's worthwhile fitting it with a larger gap, offering up the wishbone to the chassis points and getting the position correct.
My vice opens to 4½", the ball joints are 4½" and a bit long.
I know when I'm beat, maybe the manual1 is right.
Was this helpful to you? yes, no.
1No it's not, it's crap, just like the paper it's printed on.
Thanks.
Oh well, sorry.
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