Lull? What Lull?
Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:23 pm
Lull? We left off with preparations for poor NaranjaWesty to drag on out and around the country again after pulling in on October 23, 2018 at 93,600 miles. Well, after a winter layover of six months we manage to have 97,307 miles as of tonight somehow. And there is no way it can put on an inch in its current condition:
... but how did we get here? We got here because I was checking the thickness of my brake pads. If you do not want your life to devolve into chaos and severe backaches, by all means avoid checking the thickness of your brake pads. Too late for me!
As I was lifting the right front wheel with the jack under the steering knuckle, I heard a clunk. Released the jack and jacked it up again. Clunk. You canNOT rationalize your way out of any front suspension clunk. You HAVE to investigate further. I jacked the car up so the front wheels would hang. Then I got my little bottle jack out to go find which ball joint caused the clunk:
Place the jack under the lower trailing arm, and jack to contact. Now be alert for the trailing arm moving up a tiny bit before the wheel then moves up. If the *arm* moves up but the wheel doesn't, you are unloading the play in the lower ball joint socket. I had absolutely no play here.
But dang, when I continued lifting, the steering knuckle moved up what felt like a full tenth of an inch. Released the jack. Jacked the jack. I could *see* the steering knuckle/ball joint stud move up.
Clumsily attempted to measure the movement. .065" The wear limit is .080" Since the Road Warrior got 515,000 miles out of its ball joints, I was none-too-pleased to see that this newer Volkswagen just doesn't seem to be built like the old ones, only 97,307 miles?
Decided to replace *only the upper ball joints* so as to have the beautiful low-friction and still no play original lower ball joints helping to keep steering effort to a minimum. I think this is a sensible thing to do with all of the issues we have had with replacement ball joints. Lemforder (original equipment manufacturer)? Nope, made in China, some questioning reviews. Meyle, trash. See diagram. Apparently, some of these manufacturers do not want to machine the caps to follow the radius of the ball, so they stick in a molded plastic cup that is barely supported by the cheap stamped caps. I went with the OE brand on the right which has factory original architecture, a machined metal cap with a fully supported plastic cup:
to be cont ...
... but how did we get here? We got here because I was checking the thickness of my brake pads. If you do not want your life to devolve into chaos and severe backaches, by all means avoid checking the thickness of your brake pads. Too late for me!
As I was lifting the right front wheel with the jack under the steering knuckle, I heard a clunk. Released the jack and jacked it up again. Clunk. You canNOT rationalize your way out of any front suspension clunk. You HAVE to investigate further. I jacked the car up so the front wheels would hang. Then I got my little bottle jack out to go find which ball joint caused the clunk:
Place the jack under the lower trailing arm, and jack to contact. Now be alert for the trailing arm moving up a tiny bit before the wheel then moves up. If the *arm* moves up but the wheel doesn't, you are unloading the play in the lower ball joint socket. I had absolutely no play here.
But dang, when I continued lifting, the steering knuckle moved up what felt like a full tenth of an inch. Released the jack. Jacked the jack. I could *see* the steering knuckle/ball joint stud move up.
Clumsily attempted to measure the movement. .065" The wear limit is .080" Since the Road Warrior got 515,000 miles out of its ball joints, I was none-too-pleased to see that this newer Volkswagen just doesn't seem to be built like the old ones, only 97,307 miles?
Decided to replace *only the upper ball joints* so as to have the beautiful low-friction and still no play original lower ball joints helping to keep steering effort to a minimum. I think this is a sensible thing to do with all of the issues we have had with replacement ball joints. Lemforder (original equipment manufacturer)? Nope, made in China, some questioning reviews. Meyle, trash. See diagram. Apparently, some of these manufacturers do not want to machine the caps to follow the radius of the ball, so they stick in a molded plastic cup that is barely supported by the cheap stamped caps. I went with the OE brand on the right which has factory original architecture, a machined metal cap with a fully supported plastic cup:
to be cont ...