O/S Ball Joint worn

[mattih5]

Hi,

Just had a service done on my MKII 172 2002. Part of the report says "O/S Ball Joint worn". I understand this is the ball joint on the drivers side but a few questions:

1) What is a ball joint?
2) What does it do?
3) What does it look like?
4) How much are they to replace on my car?
5) How difficult a job is it?
6) Where can I get one from?

The service centre said I would need the new ball joint, tracking and 1.5 hours labour.

Anyone have any pictures?

 

[edde]

Its the thing which holds the hubs and your wishbone together.

It lets the hub turn and keep it connected to the wishbone

Look much like this like this
http://www.engsoc.org/~pat/log/20060414.jpg (the lower new one)

Parts well you can buy copt cat parts for £20 but proper Renault ones come with a whole new wishbone at £60 or so.

Replace well depends on rust I'd say 1 hours labour.

Can be a pain depends on rust. If your licky you can do it without stripping the hub off I've had to in the past remove the hub whih takes a few more hours.

Personaly I'd only ever my a Renault one which as I said comes with a new wishbone for £60.

No need to do tracking unless the setup at the moment is out.

What do you want pics of?

 

[TomTom]

See G_F's thread here for taking the hub off, you don't need to completely remove the hub as Eddes described, but it explains how to remove the parts around it.

Thats the ball joint, you can see the 2 bolts going downwards (Red dot), and the 16mm bolt going into the hub (Blue dot).

In a nutshell, the day before your going to do it, soak the lot in penetrating oil. Remove the 2 bolts holding the ball joint to the wishbone, remove the 16mm nut on the end of the Ball joint bolt, tap the bolt through the hole, use a ball joint splitter to remove the ball joint from the bottom of the hub. When refitting you've just goto line the indent in the ball joint up with the hole in the bottom of the hub, get the bolt through and your away.

 

[steveL]

wise words above soak in wd40 or the like the day before. I just changed a ball joint on my clio didnt soak it and what a git that was i ended up using a nut splitter to undo the two bolts that hold it to the wishbone. job took about an hour no need to take the hub off as said before. Nice easy job really, if you need any help im more than happy to offer advice as are most users on here. Pattern parts are pretty good they have to be, service centres dont use stuff from the manufacturer unless told to so id say save some dosh and go to GSF or Eurocarparts or partco and get the ball joint from there. It will be a load cheaper than those robbing Renault dealerships.

Steve