Vehical 1999 XJ8 4.0 Sov 105,000mls

I have been following this thread on this subject : https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-joints-66605/

I am currently stuggeling to get the lower ball joint separated from the vertical link. I am hopeing to get this done with a big "pickle" fork and big hammer.

However my thoughts are turning to how to force the BJ out of the lower wishbone whilst its in the car.

Which of these two tools look like the way to go ?

1) Big heavy duty G clamp. The Record 121/8 looks like its good for over 5ton of force. Extra Heavy Duty G-Clamps

2) C clamp kit with spacers etc, not sure how strong this unit would be. 21PC Universal Ball Joint Separator 4x4 Master Adaptor Removal Service Kit New | eBay

 

You need a C clamp made for ball joints like #2 but I can't tell if that C clamp is large enough. Get the heaviest duty Kit you can find. You will need a grinder as well with thn cut off disks and a heavy duty impact gun. You will need to remove part of the outer ball joint lip to allow a spacer (cup) to seat on the control arm.

I recommend you give lots of PB Blaster time to soak in. I needed an impact gun to turn the C clamp and I still thought the ball joint would not come out The ball joints are really tight and it sounds like a gun shot when they finally release and start to move. I did not use any heat on the control arms but I think others have. There are several other posts on changing them in the forum. Good luck

 

+1 on the soak and leave treatment repeated over a number of days.

These are a b*****d to release.

Graham

 

I keep giving me nuts and ball joint a spary of WD40 every time I pass it ! Hopefuly it will be ready to come apart when I get my BJ press kit next week.

It looks like these kits on ebay are good for 4 Tonne. See this example 10 PCS BALL JOINT SERVICE KIT#SPLITTER# REMOVER# SEPARATOR# ADAPTOR | eBay

I hope its 2x over engineered, it looks like I might need to give it some abuse to get the BJ out !!

 

You will need a scissor type press like this Laser 2708 Ball Joint Separator Scissors Type press frame 31 1 441 | eBay to remove the ball-joint cone from the vertical link.
Forget about fork type, is useless if your car is old and rusty.

To remove the ball-joint from the lower arm and to refit, you need to go to a hydraulic press and better go to a shop having one of this, forget about cheap alternatives, safety first.

This is how I did on my car a year ago.

Most complicated will be to remove the lower arm with the spring still compressed.

 

I have a scissor type already except mine is made by Draper. Its currently on the car straining its nuts off. I left it over night hoping it would help the penatrating oil get in. I was going to give another few tweeks with the spanner and a few more sharp blows with me 2lb hammer after some more WD40 soakings.

If that did'nt work I was going investigate whether the brake disc gaurd can be removed if I were to take the brake disc off. I might then be able to force the fork all the way through the vertical link. The BJ is NFG already so destroying the rubber is of little consquence.

I here what your saying about getting the wishbone out and into a shop with BIG hydraulic press but it looks to be quite an involved procedure to get it out. I stopped reading the JTIS procedure after it started talking about disconnecting the steering rack. And then after you've put it back together it seems to be recommended that you get the wheel aligments checked. Probably a main dealer job.(£££)

I think I will try plan A first, ie use the 'C' clamp with wishbone in the car. Plan B is as you say, get the wishbone out. But I realy don't want plan B.

 

You need to use PB Blaster, it works like nothing else to break down rust. WD-40 will not help. This BJ kit you listed looks like the one I bought from Amazon. I did have to find other cups to (pipe) get the correct diameter piece to fit over the BJ and fully seat on the control arm. Grinding part or all of the outer ring of the BJ is needed to expose the seat surface of the control arm. If the cup is not fully seated you will not get enough force to remove the BJ

The huge advantage of using this C clamp is being to leave the lower control arms in place. Removing the spring to get the control arms off and the re-assembly is very dangerous if you don't have the special spring compressor. I have done both and no way would I take the springs out to change the BJ

 

I have the new BJ in and seated correctly. I used the 'C' clamp method without any real problems. I tooks some photos as I went so I will post this up with a bit of narrative to encourage others if they wish to have a go. Looking at I see no reason why the same technique could not be used on the upper BJ's too.

 

glad to hear that you were successful. The same technique works for the upper ball joints. They are easier to change than the lower ones

 

After the event this is the way I did my front lower wishbone BJ.

The 'C' clamp and BJ splitter tools I purchased. I bought a 21pc set but in hind sight I probably could have used the cheaper 10pc set as only one of the spacers was required.



Since my trolley jack has developed "brewers droop" I made the special tool (see JTIS) to constrain the front spring when the shock absorber is removed. It goes through the middle of the spring and bayonent fixes into the top. If you don't do something to hold the spring it could come flying out of the car and take your head off !! Others seem to have used a jack under the bottom wishbone to do the job.

I machined up my tool from some M12 allthread and some 20mm bar.



The shock removed and the BJ separated from the vertical link.






Chopping the rim off the ball joint all round so the spacer can seat onto the wishbone. I used 4" angle grinder and air chisel. I also chop of the taper stem to make more easier access for the grinder.




The C clapmp setup.



You need quite some force to press the BJ out. I used an extension on my breaker bar !



When you think your at the point where the breaker bar is about to break, get the lump hammer out and wack the C clamp and it should suddenly "go".



The new BJ ready for pessing back in.



New BJ pressed in but not yet fully home. A reccess "cup" is requred for the top to recieve the top of the BJ as it protrudes through the wishbone.



I had to machine a special "cup". The recess is 1/8" deep.



You need to cut the side off too.



The special "cup" recieves the BJ and its fully "home".



Jobe Done, bar putting the car back together.

 

Great sequence of procedure pics.

Graham

 

Brave man doing those in situ!


Three tips:

When you've got pressure on the old joint, don't hit the c-clamp, hit the wishbone instead. (tap around the outer diameter of the balljoint) This squeezes the wishbone against the side of the balljoint momentarily, then as it springs back it releases the tension on the joint.

You've welded the subframe mounting to the chassis leg with your repair there. It should be held on with two bolts coming through vertically from the engine bay, rather than welded on! Won't cause a problem now but you might curse should you ever have to replace it.

M12 allthread is available in various grades. Sometimes it is grade 8.8+ (like the OE stuff) but usually it is grade 4.4 (cheese) and some cheap hardware store stuff might not even be graded at all. M20 fits very snugly in both the subframe and the wishbone slot and is safe to use even if it's made of cheese. Yours was clearly strong enough but it's something to check if making one of these yourself.

 

What a job...,i,m taking the easy route and bought the arms complete with bushings.

 

Yes I got man in to do the welding, he told me he was going to weld to the mounting plate as he could 'nt see another way. It only occured to me when I was applying my POR-15 paint on it a couple of days later that it was in fact a bolted on component and not part of the chassis. Well, if the sub-frame ever has to come I will have to remeber to get the disc cutter out first !

Yes when I made my tool I had two bits of allthread kicking around, one steel 1/2" BSW and the other M12 S.S. I went with M12 stainless steel which is much tougher than the cheap steel grade. Although I have to say when I had the 19mm spanner on the nut with the spring load on it did'nt feel like the torque was anywhere close to the yield point when I tightened it.

I don't feel it was brave to tackle the job. Having the knowledge and experience from the other users on this forum enthused me that it was reasonably possible with the correct, but not to expensive tools. You can get the 4Ton 10pce C Clamps sets on ebay for around £55. I reckon it cost me about £125 for the BJ, splitters tools and 21pc C clamp kit. At a main dealer thats probably just enough loot to jack the car up and take the wheels off. Anyhow there's no such thing as man with too many tools or too large a train set.

 

I've had well over 10T on those balljoints before they've moved - rather you than me doing that on the floor and kudos for pulling it off!


I prefer to drop the spring pan, decompress the spring fully (thread needs to be 500 mm long), then remove the entire lower wishbone along with the upright and upper wishbone. You can do all your grinding and kicking seven bells out of the balljoint on the bench then - or take the whole lot to somebody with a press to crush seven bells out of it.

Top balljoint and track rod end come out like this:

For the bottom balljoint, flip the upright upside down and plate the top of it on a vice/anvil. One hard blow directly on the end of the thread with a 4 lb club hammer and the lower balljoint pops out.

Either mark up the alignment bolts on the lower wishbone before removing, or whip the entire car down to ATS Euromaster afterwards. If you book online, you can see which of their centres have the proper 4-wheel laser alignment gear (caster and camber on the front, not just tow) and they'll set the car up properly for 63 quid. Supervise the process though - it is ATS after all...


Allthread - sounds like you picked a good one. (I galled a cheapo BZP M16 allthread on the job) They tend to yield/gall early because the nut isn't loaded symmetrically when you compress the spring. The M20 is cheap enough and definitely goes nowhere:

Threaded Rod M20 x 1m Steel BZP : Tooled-Up.com

 

I did a back of the envelope calc and I reckon I had about 7t on the BJ using the clamp. I had my 24" 1/2" breaker bar with a 14" extension pulled to the point I thought it could break. The spec on the bar states a max torque of 390Nm. The screw on the clamp is 28mm dia with a 3.5mm pitch. It did'nt shift with this load on it. Only then wacking the C clamp with a 4lb lump hammer took it to the point where it let go.

 

I am currently halfway through trying to get the lower ball joint out "in-situ". I have grinded away the lip of the joint and have tried and bent a fairly robust puller.

I was wondering - if I compressed the spring and put a stand under the front arm could I safely remove the rear arm to get it on a press without using the spring compressor?

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

Having replaced front springs with the correct Jaguar spring compressor, I wouldn't consider any other way of removing the tension on them:



Many have used threaded bolt which, if carefully selected, is an alternative but just jacking under the arm is potentially very dangerous. The spring is curved in situ and if it was to jump free, anything in the way would be badly damaged.



The force from the spring on the lower is not vertical making it hard to counteract.

Graham

 

Dear GGG

Thats a broken spring you took out there. Did it break due to corrosion do you know ? Mine are bit scruffy at the bottom which might cause the MoT man to mark them as "Red" instead of "Amber".

He used to complain about my roll bar being rusty as well, it looked your one there. However I have had it out and wire brushed then painted with POR-15 now.

Can you hire the Jag spring compressors or do have to know the right person at a main dealer to borrow from ?

 

The spring corroded - it wasn't due to hitting a pothole or anything like that. As a result, the MoT Inspector picked up on it straightaway.

That's a bit harsh on you with the AntiRoll Bar. I'd expect an 'advisory' if the bushes were worn but the bars all get surface rust on them.

You have two options for the Spring Compressor other than buying it:

1. hire from JEC (Jaguar Enthusiasts Club) - members only
2. post a question in the X300 section asking to borrow one

I know one UK member who owns this tool (and was kind enough to lend it to me a few years ago) but I'll respect his privacy and not give you the name so I don't put him under any obligation or pressure.

Graham