Hey guys-
I'm replacing the ball joints since I have the hubs off and getting the new bearings pressed in.
The lowers are shot.
I rented the tools to get them off, but I'm having a little trouble getting the lower one to break lose.
I have the tool in place and have it torqued down pretty tight.
I used a breaker bar, but it wasn't up to the task. It broke. I have used my electric impact driver, but it's not doing it either.
The lowers do come out through the bottom, correct?
-Thanks-
-Cash

 

Check Johnken's writeup in the link below.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...edback-188929/

 

Hi Cash,
Yes, they come out through the bottom. I tried to replace mine a few years ago and it didn't work out to well. I have a 10,000 lb press (kind of a small bench top) and it couldn't budge them. I took them to a machine shop and they were able to R&R them but it took 20,000 lbs to get them out; I'm not sure how much to get the new ones in. After less than 10,000 miles, both were broken, not worn out, and I had to replace them, opting for the new arms with ball joint installed. Others may have had better luck replacing them.


There's a little more to the story if you want to hear it ...


Mark
2002 XJR-100


PS - I used to live in North Richland Hills

 

Ha. Any knowledge is good at this point.
-Cash

 

While some have gotten luck with removing 'em with less than a 20 ton press, I have never been so lucky in fact every single one (except for the one that needed replaced about a year later as it failed) needed every ton of that 20 ton press and sounded like a shotgun when they finally broke loose.

 

What I had to do is remove as much as possible of the joint, first cutting it off flush with a cut off wheel on a grinder, then drilling it out with the biggest drill I have, then making a couple of radial cuts outward, from the hole you just drilled, with a hacksaw or jigsaw, ideally stopping just before you hit the arm itself. The idea is to relieve the pressure on the press fit.

This worked on both sides, and I was able to remove the old joints and press the new ones out, in situ with the OTC 7249 tool.

 

I tried to take the front lower rearward wishbone off today. I rented the tool to ompress the spring, I could not get the tool onto the spring. Is there a specific sprinng compressor to use with these frot springs?

 

It's a Jaguar, so of course there's a special tool !! It's a threaded rod that fits upwards through the middle of the spring and hooks into the notch at the top of the mount. There's a half-ball piece that slides up to the spring pan, then a crank handle that screws onto the rod to hold the pan while the bolts are removed. Here's a pic of it installed:


As you can see, it's about twice as long as needed for an X308, so I had to jack the front end up till the exhaust tips were almost to the floor. That was a lot of fun ...

 

Do you have the name of the tool?

 

I made one out of a piece of threaded rod, 19mm/ 3/4" with 2 nuts welded together for increased bearing aera and a couple of galvanised 2" square 3mm washers welded into a unequal L
The top of the rod needs to be cross drilled to accept a 6mm roll pin.
The roll pin seats into a depressed slot in the top housing.
Get some long bolts to suit the thead of the seat pan bolts to facilitate realigning the pan when refitting.

 

Although if you do it the way I did it, the arm stays on the car.

 

I can't get the lower ball joints out of the wishbone so it' going to have to come off and go to the shop.
I don't see anything for sale like what hispeed42 shows.
Rodman25 - Do you have a photo of what you built?

 

It's the Coil Spring Compressor, part number 204-111. Here's the Jag tool website: https://jaguar.service-solutions.com...3/1/Suspension


They're quite proud of this thing !! I would offer to let you use mine, but it's in a storage room 100 miles west of here.


MarkSF and Robman have some good ideas on work-arounds.

 

My method was to replace each of the bolts holding in the spring perch with threaded rod, one at a time, to remove the spring. Once I had the control arms out, the key to getting the ball joints and bushing to press in and out was heat. A heat gun or small propane torch is enough to get the ball joints and bushing to press out relatively easily (at least that was my experience).

It it was a bit of a struggle to figure out the process, but after the first one, they all went smoothly.

 

I can post a few photos tomorrow.

 

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jag...d63434287f.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jag...e0a3b20654.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jag...ffc5c60dcb.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jag...74c52aa8e5.jpg

 

That will do the deed and at a much lower cost than buying the official tool.

 

Thanks hispeed42-
I'll give it a shot.

 

I did the same as Robman25, piece of 19mm threaded bar, weld some pieces of bar to 2 19mm nuts as turn handles, drill a hole about 25mm down one end of the threaded bar and insert a roll pin, I used an 8mm pin. I also found it easier to use a few pieces of threaded bar (about 6 inch long or so) to replace the lower pan bolts, they acted as a guide when lowering the pan... worked a treat!

 

I chose the 6 - M10-1.5 threaded rod option.
It took a few days for Grainger to get stainless steel threaded rod in.
I cut it up into 6 12" lengths.
I finally found the various nuts I needed at Elliotts hardware in Plano-TX.
I decided to use coupling nuts because the length of the nuts would give me much more bite. I didn't want to chance a regular nut fa20iling under that kind of stress.
I used a length of pipe and cut it into 2" lengths.
I removed each bolt one at a time and replaced it with the threaded rod/2" pipe length/washer/coupler nut.
Then I just backed off each nut about 1/8" at a time and worked my way around the 5 rods until the spring was uncompressed.
Took about 20-30 minutes.
Ignore the large threaded rod in the middle. I was going to build the center of the spring compressor tool, but the other option looked easy enough. I just left that rod in there. It's just setting in there anyway.

It took longer to cut the rod and chase the threads than it did getting the spring/cradle off.

Cash-
1998 XJ8