... MOT.

Land Rover passed!!

but Volvo failed

worn ball joint on control arms.

so has anyone replaced these? Haynes manual has no picture but from what I can tell, there is no need to compress the sprong as the macpherson struct is self contained; just a matter of unding 2 bolts and one nut.

garage quote 2 hours work for that, looks like 10 mins per side.

Do they know something I don't know?

(well I am sure they do but conrcerning this job).

this is the puppy:


and here you can see the ball joint popped off.


don't suppose anyone got manual showing the parts fitted?

I reckon it'll be straightforward but don't want to end up with undriveable car.

[Edited on 13/2/09 by 02GF74]

Why do you need to toouch the mcpherson strut... Sounds like the track rod ball joints want replacing... not the Big balljoint at the bottoim!

^^ that was my question, seems not - not really worked on anything modern.

nope, they deffo said control arms ball joint - I did ask about track rods but they said no.

I suppose I know have to ask how to test - jack up wheel and try to see movement when prodding with a wrecker bar?

850 sub forum of the volvo owners club might be useful

http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=16

You can browse as a guest but I think you need to register to search

thats as 'modern' as my old bluebird

You'll need to undo the anti-roll bar and slacken off the wishbone bolts to pull the wish bone down enough, Cavaliers have almost an identical setup too, piece of cake. Mind though the cars extremely heavy shove the wheel under the sill to be on the safe side, its way heavier than the landy

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
thats as 'modern' as my old bluebird

You'll need to undo the anti-roll bar and slacken off the wishbone bolts to pull the wish bone down enough, Cavaliers have almost an identical setup too, piece of cake. Mind though the cars extremely heavy shove the wheel under the sill to be on the safe side, its way heavier than the landy

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I know on some replacement (cheap) wishbones they don't have the balljoint fixed in place and you have to bolt another joint to them.
Which, if a garage is doing it will also result in a tracking (extra labour) charge too. Perhaps this is why 2 hours?

As said, its a piece of cake presuming the inboard 2 bolts come out. Vauxhalls are renowned for stripping the rearwards inboard bolts, and on all cars I've done they are threadlocked too, so a pain to release initially.

When I last did mine, I actually painted them in the car body colour too. Properly, primer, colour and lacquer. Makes it much easier to keep them clean and looks nice too

Here in Canada (where snow and heavy doses of road salt are the norm) the bolts often rust themselves solidly inside the metalastic bushes and need remedial action with the oxy/acetylene torch (dirty, smelly and occasionally painful job).

Over on your side it's more likely to be a simple job to unscrew the pinch bolt on the hub, pop a great whacking pipe into the old control arm to lever it down off the hub, remove the inner fixing bolts (fingers crossed ) and replace.

FWIW, we have a company called Dorman who market very inexpensive replacement control arms (about 35 pounds for my Mitsubishi) on this side of the Atlantic -- if they sell on your side it would be worth looking them up.

t

Random Volvo Control Arm

[Edited on 13/2/09 by andkilde]