how to remove wishbone? ive done many but struggled today

[lude]

i can easilt undo the 2 bolts closest to the engine,

but the nut at the ball joint i had no idea how to.

the drive shaft is in the way of the nut.


so i removed the hub nut/drive shaft nut to try and get it out the way.

still coudnt get the hub out the way to undo the balljoint nut?


how do you go about it?

 

[Prawn]

Use a spanner instead of a socket?

or just undo the 3 bolts that hold the wishbone to the ball joint?

sorry if youve already tried ether of these options

 

[lude]

you cant get a ring spanner on the nut as there is no space above it due to the driveshaft.

if you do remove the 3 bolts on the balljoint, that just removes the balljoint from the wishbone.

the balljoint is still connected to the hub by this one bolt which im.refering to...

i want to replace the balljoint aswel as the wishbone

 

[<tuffty/>]

What car is it? if you have an S3 then undoing the 3 bolts to remove the ball joint has the potential to through the tracking right out as S3 cast arms have slots... moving these will not only throw tracking out but potentially play havoc with ESP/ABS as the steering wheel may not sit straight..

<tuffty/>

 

[Paul_TDi]

I swapped the wishbones on my a3 1.8T couple months ago, only took a couple of hours for both sides, trickiest bit for me was getting the ****** things back in!

I just undid the 3 bolts to remove the balljoint from the wishbone, you will need a puller to remove the balljoint.

 

[lude]

its not an s3 its a 1.9 tdi.

i havent removed the 3 bolts for the balljoint im replacing the whole wishbone. and then a new balljoint too.

reason i am doing this is because the bushes in the wishbone are dead, and the steering wheel is already not straight.
the tracking is way off and needs new bushes/wishbone before can be corrected

 

[lude]

paul how did you remove the nut on the balljoint then? as the driveshaft is in the way?

 

[markyR]

use the open end of the spanner to undo them mate, the ball joint will probably end up spinning not allowing the nut to come undone so have another jack handy to jack up underneath the b/j to add pressure. oh and give it a good going over with wd40.

 

[Paul_TDi]

I didn't remove the ball joints, those bushes were good enough so just swapped the wishbones.

I've not had to remove that ball joint before, I've had to remove the track arm ball joints without a puller and they were a pain in the ****! Full swings with a scaffold bar and still didn't budge.

 

[Squirrelofdoom]

get some ball joint splitters. As people said, they need pressure to come undone properly. OR, shock. Ball joints come undone from shock, they don't like it. So worst comes to it - hold it still somehow and "shock" it with a hammer. I had an air hammer and got mine off this way

 

[Sam_]

I have to do this at the weekend to fit new arms. Not looking forward to it. What kind of ball joint separator is best?

 

[[Dave B]]

I used a fork splitter to do some last weekend, ended up snapping the splitter doing one side (to be fair it was a 'Laser' splitter which was made of chocolate).

 

[dre_S3]

Yeah I just used a folk splitter to not a bad job really to tell the truth

 

[Sam_]

Cool, I'll grab one tomorrow. Any other useful tools/parts?

 

[[Dave B]]

I assume you're replacing the ball joints as well, as the fork splitter will likely destroy the boot on the ball joint. Otherwise just the usual stuff and a vice/press for bushes.

 

[Sam_]

Yeah I remember that from my 205 days that the fork style ones aren't too nice to the boots but if you're careful they're not too bad.

Yeah new ball joints too. No more bushes, rose joints (I'm fitting IDF tubular control arms)

 

[16Klappe]

I have ALWAYS left the nut on two or three threads and tapped it down with a hammer.

Never had any issues yet.