front suspension check over

[restojon]

Hi all,
currently in the process of recommissioning my SC and as it's stood for a while amongst other things I'll be checking is the front suspension. Thing is though I'm not that familiar with the layout of the system and I seem to remember reading that you can check the P6 suspension in the conventional manner and it doesn't show up any faults even if there are faulty parts, not only that I saw a recent(ish) thread from one of our Kiwi chaps with the ball joint failure and I don't fancy that outcome so I'd like to call on the expertise of those more versed.
Prior to lay up the nearside upper ball joint boot had split and after particularly nasty rain the car developed a creak until you filled it with grease again, incidentally I've heard that boots are now part of the MOT as before they were only an advisory.
All help gratefully received.
Thanks,
Jon.

 

[chrisyork]

OK. Replacement boots are readily available, but you're going to have to split the joint in order to fit it. Although there was quite a saga en route, the actual ball joint split in NZ was finally pretty instant and easy. The basic principle is that the joint is made by the two tapers - the nut is only there to retain the debris after the joint has failed. To split the tapers you need to have a lot of tension on the joint and then to whack (fine engineering term!) the outer part of the joint from both sides simultaeously with ball end hammers. The tension is acieved by a combination of a scissors splitter and arranging the body and suspension using jacks etc so that they also provide as much tension as possible. If the joint doesn't split the first time, leave it under tension whilst soaking in as much penetrating fluid of your choice as possible, and come back to it in a day or so. The point of the hammers both sides is to deform the outer part of the taper joint. On one side only, the whole joint just moves to one side slightly, with two the metal has nowhere to go, so has to deform.

Other things to look for.

I would renew the shock absorber lower mounting rubber bushes as a matter of course - have a search for a few links on here as there is a technique to getting the split pin out to release the rubbers. When you have finished you should be able to see one open and unused pin hole beyond the mounting rubbers.

Get some hefty levers in to move things around and check for movement in all of the joints, both taper and rubber. The most important one to check is the steering idler on the passenger side. That's buried right up almost into the engine bay. You are checking for the entire idler assembly being loose on the body and for any vertical movement in the quadrant that has the two steering arms attached. The latter is a sign of an unserviceable idler that needs a rebuild. They start by leaking oil out of the bottom, but most are long dry, so wear the bearing bushes inside instead.

Don't forget the taper joints on the track rod, which runs from side to side of the car immediately under the heater box. You can see the two ends on the quadrants under the steering idler and steering box.

Unless there is catastrophic damage to the rubbers visually, I wouldn't touch the top link pivots on the bulkhead. At present only polybushes are available for this location and they are worse than even a quite bad rubber bush!

Another neglected item is the rubber mushroom head on the end of the bell crank that presses against the plate on the end of the spring. You shouldn't be able to see it hardly at all. But they do split and ooze out from the end of the bellcrank. When this happens, the metal end of the bellcrank gets on with punching a hole through the spring plate. At first you get suspension lower one side than the other, eventually theres a huge BOOIING and the spring escapes! Replacement is a full spring out suspension strip.

Don't forget to add some grease to the front wheel bearings and adjust then for end float. If they are smooth when you rotate the hub, thy don't need replacing, just nip up the hub nut firmly but not aggressively. If the bearing goes tight to rotate you've overdone it!

Hope that helps

Chris

 

[restojon]

That's spot on, just what I needed, thanks very much.