Can anybody confirm for me whether Fiesta Mk3 bottom ball joints fit the bottom of Sierra Xr4x4 front uprights. The usual Maxi or Cortina ones won't 'cos of the 4x4's pinch bolt setup to allow for the limited space due to the front driveshafts. I'm sure I read somwhere on here that the Fiesta BJ's were the way to go, but I spent about 2 hours last night going through previous posts to no avail!!!

Also, I gather the standard Sierra upright inserts from Lolocost/MK don't fit the top of the 4x4 uprights either. If this is the case, does anybody make inserts that do fit, or is the only option to fabricate an insert from the old McPherson strut?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Mart.

I chopped up the lower control arm from the Sierra to make the bottom ball joint. Had to drill 2 holes through it to allow for attaching it to the lower wishbone.

I used the old mcpherson strut to make my own insets, also made the tappers hole to accept the transif balljoint.

theres pictures on my site showing what was done. It ain't pretty but cost me nothing which ties in with my full ethos of building a unique car, that is reasonably quick with 4 wheel drive.

Cheffy,

I think it was me who is to blame for the Fiesta BJ post. I think we're out of luck on this one- I took my 2WD Sierra hub into the motor factors and tried Fiesta BJ's from both MK2s and MK3 Fiestas. Neither the XR2i (three hole) nor the standard twon hole BJ would fit.

The reason I thought they might fit was that looking at my girlfriends Fiesta they looked about right. What's confused me is that none of the BJs at the motor factors looked anything like my Girlfriends ones- so maybe she has an odd car!

Cheers,

James

Thanks for the response Guys.

Ewan, loads of interesting stuff on your site. As a 4x4 builder I'll be a regular visitor to compare notes. Very early days for me at the minute but I'll post pictures as I go. Looks like the chopped control arm mod could be the way to go if nothing else comes up.

James, just been going back through more earlier posts to see if I could find anything else and found this: if you look at Ewan's post on 18/10/01 (Running Gear/4x4 drivetrain from Sierra xr4x4, it's the very last but one post on page 9!) there's a response from EA82T that says that the Fiesta Mk3 and Escort Mk5 don't have a taper ball joint but a pinch bolt arrangement, this sounds very similar to the set up on the 4x4 uprights. Do you think there is some confusion because of the difference between the 2wd and 4wd Sierra uprights. As I understand it the 2wd Sierra upright has a tapered hole for the bottom ball joint (albeit not the right size for the Cortina one), where as the 4wd hole is a straight cylinder profile with the pinch bolt to hold things in place instead of the nut on top of the ball joint spindle. Did any of the ball joints you looked at at the motor factors sound as though they might fit the 4x4 uprights. I'll post a couple of pictures in the photo archive if the wife hasn't taken the digital camera to her sisters with her!!

I'll take a trip to the motor factor near me tomorrow and see what they say. I'll let you know if I come up with anything.

Cheers for now, Mart.

Ok, found the camera, photo's uploaded,

Cheers,

Mart

i wouldnt use fiesta bottom joints. They are only coping with 'tie' loads.

The cortina joints are built to take a pulling load.

On a fiesta, the macphereson strut takes the weight load. On a locost its the bottom joint.




atb

steve

try escort mk5 bj,s,they are larger in diameter

ps threw one in the bin this morning,ill dig it out morrow and measure it,you measure the hole in bottom of your hub

Hi Cheffy

Ooh another 4x4 builder. There'll be enough to start our own racing series soon - rallying of course he he

I'd also be very interested to know if any bj's fit our 4x4 uprights. I suppose I could go down my local motor factors with my uprights tomorrow. Hmmm. The other option is to get them from Dax - they have some specially made for their Rush Quadra 4x4 kit. Dax parts and Locost dont exactly go hand in hand though - they're about 90 odd quid for the pair .

As for the top inserts, I spoke to Martin Keenan at a show and he said he'd be happy to do one-offs - dunno how much he'd charge mind. Shouldn't be too hard to make your own, or speak to Dax if you're rich.

So what sort of stage are you at Cheffy? Are you gonna be another 4x4 builder to pip me to the post? What are you doing about the front prop shaft I wonder?

Well that's enough for now...

Good luck,

Liam

nice to see you back liam.....you faded away a bit there !

atb

steve

Hi Steve - nice to know you care!

Well I had to build my bedroom in my new house (at the back of the garage!), then I had to fix my 205 twice (thats gearbox out twice in 10 miles, the ungrateful French piece of sh*t). Then I found myself experiencing some unforseen Jaguar ownership. Oh yes the boys of the family now have a series III 4.2 XJ6 to play with after I sucessfully got it through its MOT - first time!

But this week I have actually been in the garage!! My chassis is now almost done (tacked) and has a diff sitting in either end on bits of wood. But I've now ran out of money just as I am comming to need ball joints, a few rose joints and some shocks. Isn't that always the way.

Anyway - aren't you on the road yet?

Liam

Hi All,

Have put photo of 4x4 ball joint in archive. Diameter is 0.67 inches (sorry, have only got imperial Vernier callipers!) In light of Steve's warning about the strength of the Fiesta ball joint (thanks Steve!), would the Escort ball joint be okay (assuming it fits) or does the Escort use McPherson struts as well.

Hi Liam, I'm just tacking up the chassis at the minute. Donor all stripped and parts waiting to be cleaned. Have set up a simple web site at http://mysite.freeserve.com/cheffy
Have got a bit further than the pictures on the site. Will try and get it updated over the weekend. Was goin' to follow Ewan's path with the front prop shaft. I wouldn't worry about me beating you to the finishing post though, I'm reckoning somewhere 12-18 months to finish. So is it just the you, Ewan and me goin' the 4x4 route at the moment or are you aware of anyone else?

Cheers for now,

Mart

escort and fiesta bj,s are 17mm,mondeo ones are bigger,19mm i think

maybe I'm missing something here but why don't you weld the ring (short bit of tube holding the lowerballjoint) to the lowerwishbone and use the standard 4x4 balljoint?

0.67" is roughly 17.018mm by my calculations, so looks like the Festa/Escort bjs may fit as long as they're the right shape. Might go and have a look tomorrow at my local motor factors.

There'll be a pretty large pulling load on the bottom bj of even a mcpherson strut car, assuming the anti roll bar attatches to the lower track control arm - which it usually does. So any such bj's ought to be designed to take a pulling load I would have thought - but don't quote me on that. I'm OK cos I'm using inboard shocks operated by the top wishbones, so my lower joint takes no pulling load at all.

Cheffy - as far as I'm aware there is me, you, Ewan and some other guy who is not on this list (i think) - he put an Autocad drawing of his chassis in the files area of the yahoo list which is quite useful cos it has nice models of the sierra 4x4 uprights and rear diff, and I'm hoping the distances between hubs etc are correct so I can make my wishbones the right length (I measured my sierra before I cut it up then lost the measurements - doh!). There is also Simon Rook (aka EA82T) who is making a 4x4 chassis based on a Locost which will eventually become a ford RS200 replica - haven't heard from him for a while mind and his website hasn't been updated in a year.

Liam

Jesus I need to change my World Cup themed avatar. I dont even like football.

EDIT: That's better

ewwwwwwwww
what did I write this time, that is what llcst seem to do oops. I seem to remember from some hot rod related shops that there are screw in type of joints that are designed to be used in the named joints. If only i could remember the us site that sold them. Willwood or alike??

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Anyway - aren't you on the road yet?

Liam

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quote:

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There'll be a pretty large pulling load on the bottom bj of even a mcpherson strut car, assuming the anti roll bar attatches to the lower track control arm - which it usually does. So any such bj's ought to be designed to take a pulling load I would have thought - but don't quote me on that.

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stephen i can see your point but all ball joints are made the same way now just some larger than others

A cortina joint is a pretty hefty thing.....the ones that were on my granada donor (like the sierras) were very much smaller.

That bears you out - id expect the load capability to be a lot less.....which bears me out too!


atb

steve

Conrodkid, thanks for the measurements. Do the Escort and Mondeo both use McPherson struts, only I'm now concerned with Steve's argument for not using balljoints in situations where they have not been tried and tested. This rules out modifying the original 4x4 joints, which in turn poses the question 'what do we use?' If the Escort or Mondeo balljoints are suitable then that would be the obvious way to go.

Thanks again for all the help,

Mart.

I'm pretty sure the Escort and Mondeo are McPherson Strut - aren't pretty much all cars like that McPherson strut nowadays? So any of those would be 'used in a situation they weren't designed for'.

The twin bike engined 4WD Tiger uses VW golf front uprights and, I assume, the lower bj. The golf is Maccy strut so Tiger must have thought it would be OK. I guess Ewan thinks its OK to use the sierra lower BJ. I think Stevo underestimates the pull on the joints due to the roll bar in cornering but he's right it certainly wont be as much as the suspension load of even a light car like a locost. But they will definately be designed to handle some pulling load - why not see if Ford will tell you how much. Or buy an escort bj and see how many double decker busses you can pick up with it before it breaks?

I guess the best option for piece of mind would be to get the bjs from Dax that they have specially made for them - but like I said they aint cheap. But how much is your ass worth to you etc etc.

I'm OK cos my lower bjs dont take the load - my transit track rod ends do! Luckily my mate has tried and tested that one, as have Sylva (assuming they use something like a transit track rod end on their top wishbones) and lots of other people, so I'm not gonna loose any sleep

Well I'll leave you with that load of waffle. Good night. This Wing Commander film is a load of bollox.

Liam

they are all mc pherson strut,worked on a renault kangoo today,ideal bottom wishbone with 2 bolt fixing balljoint,fiesta could be made to fit by the looks of it or measure its pin and see it that fits,id use it but its french

I am bit confused by all this about the bottom ball joint taking no load and the strut taking it all. When the car is static or in uniform motion, yes, this is correct. The difference is when the car is under braking or acceleration. No car on earth can accelerate faster than it can decelerate and ALL the braking force acts on the lower balljoint on a McP system wheras on a double wish bone system, the load is shared between the upper and lower joints. Work it out for yourselves, which balljoints have the greater load coefficients.
Also the inertia of a 950cc fiesta (approx 875kg)braking from seventy, will be more that a 500kg locost braking from ninety. I also aked a QH rep at work about the safety threshold of a standard balljoint, he said they fail at about 7 times their design load.
Basically I aint losing any sleep about balljoint loadings!

What we're talking about here is loading in the direction of pulling the ball out of the socket. You RWD people are all OK cos you use a cortina lower bj which is designed to take load in this direction (cos in a cortina the lower wishbone operates the spring like in a locost).

However us 4x4 people cant use a cortina bj cos it would foul on our front driveshafts and doesn't fit into the sierra 4x4 uprights anyway. We have to use a lower bj from a FWD car, most of which are McPherson strut. These bjs are NOT designed to take large loads in the pull-the-ball-out-of-the-socket-direction, cos in a maccy strut car the loads all go through the strut - the bj just takes all the sideways loads of braking and acceleration and it's designed to do so.

We're wondering whether these bjs will be strong enough to take the pulling suspension loads they would be subject to in a Locost.

...

Anyway - I went down to Halfords today to look at some bjs. They had fiesta ones and told me it is the same part as escort ones. It's the same 17mm as the sierra 4x4 and has a nice mounting bracket - would be easy to mount it to a wishbone. Actual bj is about the same size as the sierra one. Here's a picture of the bj - I apologise for the filesize but it needed to be really high quality to show all the detail ...



But is it strong enough?? Probably. Wish I could remember how beefy the Dax ones were. I'm gonna use these but then mine dont have to take the load!

Liam

Liam, any photo's or plans anywhere of how you're gonna do your front suspension? Also, how much were the Fiesta/Escort balljoints?

Cheers,

Mart.

Cheffy,

Bjs were 15 quid each. Haven't got any plans yet but I'll see if I can take a photo of the front of my chassis and draw on what I haven't made yet so you get the idea! Might work...

My chassis is totally different to the book but my mate did a similar thing (inboard shocks) by slightly modifying the front of a standard chassis.

Liam

Thanks Liam,

Mart.

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I am bit confused by all this about the bottom ball joint taking no load and the strut taking it all. When the car is static or in uniform motion, yes, this is correct. The difference is when the car is under braking or acceleration. No car on earth can accelerate faster than it can decelerate and ALL the braking force acts on the lower balljoint on a McP system wheras on a double wish bone system, the load is shared between the upper and lower joints. Work it out for yourselves, which balljoints have the greater load coefficients.
Also the inertia of a 950cc fiesta (approx 875kg)braking from seventy, will be more that a 500kg locost braking from ninety. I also aked a QH rep at work about the safety threshold of a standard balljoint, he said they fail at about 7 times their design load.
Basically I aint losing any sleep about balljoint loadings!

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these balljoints are designed to carry a lardy car and ocupants over all manner of road surfaces with iregular check ups and last for many years ,on a light car with less than average milage and a lot more checking i cant see them going to wear out or break

Cheffy - I've put a sophisticated CAD picture of my front suspension in my photo archive. Hope the jpeg compression doesn't make it look like something a school kid drew...

I'd tend to agree with Conrod bout the strength - production car stuff, especially steering/suspension, is generally extremely overbuilt. Steve - what about a big high-speed one-wheel bump, say kurbing a wheel in your lardy escort. That pretty instantly twists the 3/4" (or thereabouts) thick roll bar with an awful lot of force - and all of that force will be acting to pull that lower bj apart - so they will definately be designed to cope with that kind of load.

Cheffy - dont worry - Ewan will have been on the road for several months before you, using the Sierra lower BJ. So if he still has four wheels on his wagon you'll probably be OK too . Maybe ask Tiger about their use of the golf upright/bj on their 4x4 bike engined beast. Or if you've got 80-90 quid, I got Dax's parts department number.

Liam

Cheers Liam. Seriously impressed with the CAD design. Must've taken years of serious study to become that good!!!

Think I'm goin' to look into the 'inboard' idea myself. Will keep you posted.

Cheers,

Cheffy.

Well why not, but I hereby take no responsibility for further headaches you may experience! But then if you're brave enough to do 4x4 you must have what it takes.

Couple of things to bear in mind - lots of upwards load on the top wishbone brackets (I might brace mine a bit). Plus my engine is much further back than a book design which is why I can (comfortably) fit the inboard shockers between the front axle and the engine. The fact it's a V6 helps too.

Good luck. By the way - just had a quick look at your website. That donor car looks a bit nice to cut up! Bet you didn't get that for 50 quid eh? (if you did can you get me one too?)

Liam

£250 with a weeks MOT - just able to drive it home!!! Had been checked over for MOT but needed new nearside sill, otherwise very tidy.

Like you I'm also movin' the engine back quite a bit. Have had a preliminary look and I'm pretty sure I'll be okay for space.

What are you going to use for top balljoints. With them taking more weight than they would with a traditional wishbone set up d'you reckon the transit track rod ends will be up to the job?

Re: web site. Between work and building the Locost I'm tryin' to learn how to use Frontpage. Not making too much progress so far but once I do I'll see about gettin' a decent web site set up.

Cheers,

Cheffy.

Blimey that's pretty good - I paid 200 for my C-plate MK1 XR4x4 from a couple of criminals in Sheffield. Thought it was a bargain cos it had 10 months tax but the disc turned out to be forged! MOT certificate probably was too. Still I reckon it was still a pretty good buy given that it had a box of brand new rear wheel bearings in the boot and everything else worked fine.

I keep threatening to do a website too - got plenty of photos and a digicam. My techy IT mate doesn't like Frontpage (probably cos it's by Microsoft) and says he'll write me some XHTML (or something) which I can 'easily' modify. Hmmmm well I'll see.

I'm still planning to use the transit track rod end for my top joint. It wont be subject to any load pulling the ball out of the socket so it's pretty much down to the shear strength of the threaded part that fits into the wishbone, which will be more than adequate. My mate did this in his locost and had no problems. Also Sylva Strikers and Formula 27s use inboard shocks in a similar way and I imagine they probably all use joints simliar to the transit track rod ends.

Liam

Sounds like that's the way for me then. Off out to the garage to start some serious measuring!!!

Cheers,

Cheffy.

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I keep threatening to do a website too - got plenty of photos and a digicam. My techy IT mate doesn't like Frontpage (probably cos it's by Microsoft) Liam

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Woah, your son must be cool - I spent about 80 hours playing Final Fantasy VII in second year at uni. Best game ever. Housmates couldn't understand how I could spend so long trying to breed kind of big racing chickens. Really almost cried when Aeris died. Say why's he doing a site about FF VII when we're on, I believe, FF X by now? Wont you buy him a PS2? I wont let myself buy FF X or I'll never have a Locost . Really took me back that did Stevo - Final Fantasy VII eh? Great times.

Er...I'll get me coat.

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Woah, your son must be cool - I spent about 80 hours playing Final Fantasy VII in second year at uni. Best game ever. Housmates couldn't understand how I could spend so long trying to breed kind of big racing chickens. Really almost cried when Aeris died. Say why's he doing a site about FF VII when we're on, I believe, FF X by now? Wont you buy him a PS2? I wont let myself buy FF X or I'll never have a Locost . Really took me back that did Stevo - Final Fantasy VII eh? Great times.

Er...I'll get me coat.

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here speccys now that is a blast from the past any1 remember the old rubber keyed 48k????

thats what i have here as a museum piece.

they are easy to get hold of.

look on


www.ebay.co.uk


and search for sinclair spectrum


for about 20 quid you could be loading games over 20 mins from your tape player


atb

steve