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Rubber gaitors on ball joints and track rod ends.
emwmarine - 17/1/13 at 10:25 AM

All the rubber gators on the ball jonts and track rod ends for the part finished Rush I am building need replacing as they have perished.

I bought a bulk kit of replacement gators (think that is the right word for them). To attach them to the track rod end / ball joint they have come with cable ties.
That's great and easy to use but the original ones had steel wire type circlips. Is it ok to use cable ties on them?? Can't see a problem it's just to keep the rubber attached to the track rod end.


Also should I stuff them full of grease?

matt_gsxr - 17/1/13 at 10:54 AM

I reused the wire circlip when I did mine. Also packed with some of that red (rubber friendly) grease.

jossey - 17/1/13 at 11:00 AM

Yes cable ties will be fine. Would say stuff with grease but put around half a cup full in. Easiest way to do this is to put the rack boot on in the right position n cable tie the small end then retract the other end to see the rack joint n put a good amount on the track rod then slowly put the cover back over. This saves a lot of mess.

Cable ties have been used for many years to replace wire ones.

nick205 - 17/1/13 at 11:11 AM

On an IVA note, cable ties are fine, but do consider where the locking part ends up. I had to rotate a couple of mine to face down or backwards to avoid the test sphere they use to find sharp edges. In particular on the gators I fitted to the outer track rod joints.

MikeRJ - 17/1/13 at 01:00 PM

quote:
Originally posted by matt_gsxr
I reused the wire circlip when I did mine. Also packed with some of that red (rubber friendly) grease.


I wouldn't put red rubber grease inside a balljoint. This stuff is vegetable oil based and is designed only for lubricating rubber parts, not metal parts. It also tends to dry out very easily.

Balljoints come packed with standard high temperature lithium based grease from the factory, any additional grease should be of the same type. The boots are designed to be resistant to mineral grease.

rusty nuts - 17/1/13 at 07:19 PM

Re use the wire clips if you can, they will secure the boots much better than cable ties. Use a couple of small lengths of brake pipes over the end of the clips to open them when refitting