As the title suggests, one of the rear upper wishbones on my car needs changed. ******* quoted my about £750 all in, I can get the part for about £200. All looks simple enough but anything I need to be aware of?

I know you have to final-torque the bolts with road weight on the suspension, I have a trick for that. The workshop manual says I need to undo the brake hose on that side, is that true? If I do that then will I lose heaps of fluid or just a little?

 

As DaimlerMK2 posted in #3, these are the same as the S-Type.

British Parts UK list the Upper Wishbone at £110.17 each side:

Steering-Suspension | Jaguar X150 XK - XKR | British Parts UK

Considerably cheaper than the Lower Wishbone which is the more usual one to have bush failure.

Worth remembering Racing Green supply Lower Wishbone bushes (not available from Jaguar) if you ever need them:

Racing Green Jaguar. - XK 2006 onwards, Wishbone bush, lower rear

Looking at the Workshop Manual procedure, I can see no reason to disconnect the brake line provided the Lower Wishbone is supported and the Hub is temporarily wired to the Shock Absorber to prevent it falling outwards (stressing the flexi) as the upper balljoint is released.

Graham

 

Thanks but it's the upper one I want to change. The reason the brake hose has to be undone is because it's routed through the enclosed section of the wishbone, i.e. the upper triangle of the "A", if you like. It's not big enough to pass over the whole caliper.

I have the workshop manual and can see how the wishbone attaches to the car and the hub, it's just the brake hose I'm not sure about so maybe I didn't really ask the right question - I guess I meant am I going to lose lots of fluid undoing the hose etc.

 

I see what you mean now. The caliper won't pass through the section I've outlined in red:



The flexi pipe is going to have to come off. The normal way to do this is to use a brake pipe clamp which stems the fluid flow without damaging the flexi:




Without this, it will get messy.

Graham

 

Graham, yes that's what I was on about, thanks. Are those things safe enough to use, do you know? Never used them but happy to try them. I guess I'll still need to bleed out the caliper at the side in question afterward though?

 

Reviving this thread because I need to change both the upper rear wishbones on my new car (5.0 XKR). Tried this morning but can't see how to access the rearmost nut/bolt pair on each wishbone, the spring/shock and the subframe seem to prevent getting a spanner or socket onto the nut on the rear side of the mounting point on the subframe. Anyone successfully done this? The nut/bolt in question is as circled in red below:

 

I don't recall having a problem accessing that nut so must have used a standard socket, ring or open ended spanner.




Looking at the photos again, I released the balljoint and then let the lower suspension down to maximum to uncompress the damper spring as much as possible giving more space to get on the nut.






Graham

 

I just did this a couple months ago... Check post #13 to see the tools I used...

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...t-both-220673/

 

Thanks guys, much appreciated. So when the balljoint is released the lower section of the whole assembly will drop down and extend the spring and shock out, is that right? @TexasTraveler, did you do that to gain access when you did this or did you manage to get that tool onto the rear nut some other way, i.e. just passing it round the back of the shock and spring?

 

I did not have to remove shock/spring... I just put the crowfoot wrench on the nut and then used a short screw driver in the extension hole to gain leverage against the frame, so that the nut would not turn...

 

Bit late on this one and can't help about the mechanics but I believe that clamps on braided hoses is not recommended. I use them on standard, rubber-only hoses but wouldn't risk it on a braided one.

 

Aah, I see what you mean - nice one, thanks for that. I'll get a set of those and give that a shot.

Noted, thanks - will just follow the workshop manual and bleed the rear brakes afterwards.

 

Agreed.

That post was written as I was planning the work. As you can see from the later photos, I didn't use a clamp and just bled the system afterwards.

Graham

 

Actually, thinking a little further ahead, how did the folks who've done this manage to torque up the nut under the balljoint? Access is tight in there due to the rubber boot at the hub end of the driveshaft, I guess something like a crow's foot wrench and calculate the torque correction?

 

I tightened nuts with wrenches on the bottom side of the ball joint, then put torque wrench on to make sure I was close. I kept tightening with wrenches until my torque wrench would not turn the ball joint. So in theory mine should be just a little over spec which I am fine with... Hope that makes sense... But they do make open ended torque wrenches, if you wanted to add to the tool collection... Since you mentioned it I guess you could put crowsfoot on your torque wrench and go that route...

 

OK so you did manage to get a torque wrench and 18mm (I think) socket onto the ball joint nut? I didn't get as far as trying that but it looked pretty tight above the driveshaft boot.

 

I used the 18mm wrench on the nut and held the bottom of the ball joint with an 8mm wrench. I tightened the nut then I took my torque wrench with a socket and checked the torque of the nut, if I was able to turn the entire ball joint with torque wrench (meaning I wasn't to desired torque yet) I put the 18mm and 8mm wrenchs back on and tightened it a little more. I did this a few times until my torque wrench would no longer turn the ball joint. But now after thinking about it I would just put my crowsfoot on my torque wrench and my 8mm wrench on the bottom and tighten that way...

 

Thanks again, will report back when I get a chance to have another crack at this. Appreciate your input