Sidney Rough-Diamond
08-19-2007, 08:42 AM
Here's the background : I bought all new arms and drops links etc off German ebay at the start of the year to replace the worn stuff of unknown age because I wanted to track the car at the Nurburgring. Had all this installed and it was fine until after a second 'Ring trip the thurst arm bushes were shot. Finally got around to installing some RTRS bushes yesterday, but not without some hassle. First I had to do all the work at my place of work. I packed every damn tool I could find in the garage as a 'just in case' , but clean forgot to take a ball joint splitter despite telling myself to dig this out and chuck it in the car several nights before.
So now i'm at work and getting everything I need to do the job laid out on the floor and notice the lack of a splitter. Rather than drive all the way home to try and find mine, I think no big deal, screw the nut on and a good whack with a hammer with split the joint. Well,it never quite works like that,does it ?It took a lot of blows from a lump hammer to do this and of course damaged the nut slightly. I knew there was a decent selection of new nuts at work I could grab so no problem, except none where anywhere close to fitting. The old nuts were a little damaged looking but the thread was perfect and fitted no problem. So now I need a new pair - does anyone know the correct size and thread pitch, I'm guessing they are all the same even though they are not BMW parts ?
Now the second hassle. When I had the arms removed, you could see the rubber boot was badly perished and was going to split very soon - not good when they are only approx 6 months old. Needing the car back on the road, I had to install the new bushes and refit the arms with the damaged nuts. So can you buy replacement rubber ball joint boots ? The joint is still perfect and I don't really want to have to press the new bushes out again and pay for another set of arms just because of the rubber boot.
Cheers
So now i'm at work and getting everything I need to do the job laid out on the floor and notice the lack of a splitter. Rather than drive all the way home to try and find mine, I think no big deal, screw the nut on and a good whack with a hammer with split the joint. Well,it never quite works like that,does it ?It took a lot of blows from a lump hammer to do this and of course damaged the nut slightly. I knew there was a decent selection of new nuts at work I could grab so no problem, except none where anywhere close to fitting. The old nuts were a little damaged looking but the thread was perfect and fitted no problem. So now I need a new pair - does anyone know the correct size and thread pitch, I'm guessing they are all the same even though they are not BMW parts ?
Now the second hassle. When I had the arms removed, you could see the rubber boot was badly perished and was going to split very soon - not good when they are only approx 6 months old. Needing the car back on the road, I had to install the new bushes and refit the arms with the damaged nuts. So can you buy replacement rubber ball joint boots ? The joint is still perfect and I don't really want to have to press the new bushes out again and pay for another set of arms just because of the rubber boot.
Cheers