Front End Play

[bikermike]

Over the weekend I decided to tackle replacing the ball joint and tie rod dust boots and diagnose some play in the front end.

In March I replaced the front wheel bearings, front shocks and put in a 23mm sway bar. A few months later I noticed that the driver's side upper ball joint had some play in it. In fact, the castle nut was loose - the cotter pin was still in place. I snugged it up and suspected that the ball joint had gone bad. I had some movement of the drivers side front wheel when grabbing it at the 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions with the front end lifted. I know one of the previous owners had replaced ball joints a while ago, but less that 10k miles have passed since then. When driving I could sense that something wasn't right on the driver's side. I could feel vertical motion in the suspension.

With the ball joint removed, I grabbed the upper A-arm and had gave it a good tug. I can sense a little play in the spindle, less than 1mm. It rotates smoothly, but is even this little bit of movement unusual? Both sides behave the same.

I had also noticed some side to side play when grabbing the wheel at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. This would lead me to suspect tie rods and center link ends.

Questions:
1. Upper A-arm spindles / bushings. - Is any movement other than rotation an issue?

2. Ball joints - on the bench unloaded they all seem nice and snug. It seems strange that one of them had a loose nut with the cotter pin in place - could it be that the previous owner did not have it seated right when he installed them? They look practically new except for the boots that turned to mush.

3. Tie rods - once again, out of the car each joint seems snug. How much resistance to rotation should I feel by hand?

My initial though is to flush clean grease through all the ball joints and rod ends and reassemble with the new boots and appropriately torque everything to see what happens. Using that as my baseline I'd start a fresh diagnosis from there.

Any other suggestions? I don't want to start buying a bunch of expensive suspension parts if I don't need them.

By they way, here is a plug for a super helpful ball joint separator from Harbor Freight. It made disassembly a snap.
http://www.harborfreight.com/automotive ... 99849.html

HFBJ.jpg

Thanks.

[spyder]

My experience involving ball joints.

http://www.311s.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.ph ... int#p93306" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Linda]

My experience and maybe yours, again?:
http://www.311s.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.ph ... =0#p117581" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Linda

[pebbles]

Movement other than rotation in the upper spindle IS an issue. Alignment, and rattling noises. Rattling will cause extremely quick wear. And toe in when reversing.
Bench testing tie rod ends is a tough call. If it is not obvious flopping/looseness, they may seem ok, but should be tested on the car in conjunction with all rod ends installed, loading the entire steering system. IMO the inner left takes the most load, (the end on the pitman arm c/t the steering box.)

[jrusso07]

My initial though is to flush clean grease through all the ball joints and rod ends and reassemble with the new boots and appropriately torque everything to see what happens. Using that as my baseline I'd start a fresh diagnosis from there.

Thanks.

I think you have a good plan. Parts need to be checked as a system under load as others have said. Movement in spindle is bad, new cap nuts and seals solved this for me. Only one side was bad (passenger) but I did all to be safe.

[dbrick]

The upper A arm spindles are pretty much zero play, except for grease. They aren't expensive and easy enough to change. If you don't want to take the car off the road, find an extra set of upper arms, rebuild those and then swap. Use new longer bolts with nuts to lock them and you will need an alignment. Pretty sure I have a set here if you need them, just send me your old ones to replace them.

For reference only,not a repair. I noticed on my car as I was replacing the spindles is if you rotate it half a turn, the play is gone, but I would guess that wouldn't last long. It's a threaded bushing and it just changed the worn surface to a different spot on the bushing.

[23yrRebuild]

For reference only,not a repair. I noticed on my car as I was replacing the spindles is if you rotate it half a turn, the play is gone, but I would guess that wouldn't last long. It's a threaded bushing and it just changed the worn surface to a different spot on the bushing.

Dave,
I'm thinking, maybe it could last at least half the miles the first position did... How many miles might that be ?
But as you would guess, "wouldn't last long", I'm tempted to agree, as my opinion is that wear is not linear, but accelerates rapidly as tolerances are "increased". Just curious..

[dbrick]

For reference only,not a repair. I noticed on my car as I was replacing the spindles is if you rotate it half a turn, the play is gone, but I would guess that wouldn't last long. It's a threaded bushing and it just changed the worn surface to a different spot on the bushing.

Dave,
I'm thinking, maybe it could last at least half the miles the first position did... How many miles might that be ?
But as you would guess, "wouldn't last long", I'm tempted to agree, as my opinion is that wear is not linear, but accelerates rapidly as tolerances are "increased". Just curious..

I agree, half-assed repair, but an interesting question. Same would apply for the idler arm, tapered threaded bushing, take off the arm, rotate half a turn and get a new spot to wear out. I guess if you have time and no budget it would work for a while.

[bikermike]

Thanks everyone. I'll be working on it this weekend.

[bikermike]

I have the car back together. New boots, fresh grease and proper torque on all the nuts. The good news is things are feeling nice and tight, at least for the static push/pull tests.

It turns out the springs I had on hand were Dean's "Super Comps" which lower the front more than I'd like to go, especially with the rear as stock. I'll swap the stock springs back in for now as I want to get the car back on the road before the holidays. I may opt for something "in between" down the road, or just leave it stock.

Questions:
1. I think I can do a spring swap without popping the ball joints. Can someone confirm? Can I remove the 4 bolts for the lower A-Arm spindle and get to the spring from the "inside"?

2. I'm sure this has been covered before...What would be an "in between" spring option be?

Thanks.

[Alvin]

1) yes. I've done this a few times.
http://www.311s.org/pmwiki-311/pmwiki.p ... eplacement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2) The vendors should have oem NISMO or equivalent length springs.
Mike Young "Datsport" springs if still available:
http://www.datsunsports.com/Parts/index.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[roadstermike]

Bikermike, do you have any photos of your car with the standard rear leaf springs and super comp front springs? I would like to compare them to what my car looks like. I just put on my stock leaf springs as well, to compare ride quality against my comp rear springs. My ride seams to be more comfortable and raised my rear about 1 1/2 over comp rear springs. Overall ride height from front (super comp) and std leaf rear seems to have the car level. My comp rear springs made the rear end too low even with super comp fronts. Maybe my rear stock springs are sagging, not sure. If they sag, does that effect the spring rate?

[bikermike]

Not the greatest pic, but I took one.
Super Comp front springs w/ Energy Suspension 9.6114G Spring Isolators (top only)
23mm sway bar
Stock Rear springs
KYB Gas Adjusts on all 4 corners
Hankook 185/70/14 on all 4 corners:

front super comp a.jpg

fender ht s comps.JPG

Compare to:
Stock front springs w/ Energy Suspension 9.6114G Spring Isolators (top only)
23mm sway bar
Stock Rear springs
KYB Gas Adjusts on all 4 corners
Hankook 185/70/14 on all 4 corners:

Solvang Vineyard-5525.jpg

I started working on swapping the springs last night, so I can't take more pics or measurements.

[bikermike]

Something else I had noticed....I greased the front end and idler box in March with Mobil 1 Synthetic Red Grease.

mobil 1.jpg

It seemed to get really thin. I noticed some play in the idler after reassembling everything a few days ago. With this overhaul I used Stalube Moly Graph all over.

moly graph.jpg

http://www.crcindustries.com/ei/product ... ?id=SL3330
Once I pushed some new grease into the idler, all the steering linkages were nice and tight. Let's see if things stay tight after a few 100 miles.

[Alvin]